…not for lovers. I used to think a beautiful full moon in the night sky on a clear night was made for lovers. Maybe that’s from my teenage obsession with the movie Moonstruck. Cher being devoured by Nicholas Cage isn’t really my thing anymore, but back then it was the closest example I’d ever seen of “real” people falling in love. Or at least how I thought falling in love would be. Anyway…

I know now that really the moon is most beautiful at 3 AM as it passes by the window behind your baby’s crib while you nurse. I think I’ve seen more of the moon at its fullest phase in these past two months than I have in my entire life. And that’s including when I owned a telescope as a pre-teen.

Though it doesn’t take much for my thoughts to drift to my own mother these days as I continue to learn about being a mother myself, I think of her most often during these wee hour of the morning feedings. It’s the Carly Simon song she loved so much that sticks in my head.

Can you clear up the mystery of the Sphinx?
Do you know anymore about God?
Are you dancing with Benjamin Franklin
On the face of the moon?

So when I see the moon, I wonder if my mother is on it doing a two-step with a former diplomat/inventor/publisher/candle-maker’s son. Does she see me? Illuminated by the moon’s light in the bed between my sleeping son and husband? As the natural satellite makes its slow progress in the sky and moves from one side of the window to the other, is she taking a breather from the dance floor to check in on us? I like to think so.

And does she approve of what she sees? What did she do differently than I’m doing now? What would she say if she could send a message from the moon? Is she proud of me?

I suppose the moon isn’t just for mothers. It’s for everyone. And for different stages in our lives. When I was younger, the moon threw the thrilling hue of lust over dating and dancing. Now it’s my comforting balm in my sleepless nights of nursing. Maybe when I’m older still it will mean yet something else to me.

But right now, the moon and I are getting to be best friends as she waxes and wanes through the month. She’s my mother’s beaming face in the night sky, flushed from dancing and laughter gazing down, watching over me.