Maybe You Too?

We had a Super Moon (although there were a lot of clouds making its visibility far less than ideal) last night here in New England. Maybe you too? I nod my head to indicate I understand and agree with most of the explanation for its appearance in terms of size, alignment with the sun, and the tilt of the earth at this time of year but I don't know if I believe me.

Between us, I was disquieted most of last week driving to work in what Sigrid might call 'the middle of the night' (between four and five in the morning) from the gym to my job on Connecticut state roads, watching the moon, when I could see it at all growing larger as I'd drive. 

Lots of people, myself included when I didn't live here in Norwich, Connecticut, tend to think of Stamford and Greenwich when we mention Connecticut. They are pocket suburbs of sorts of New York City and are as urban as Brooklyn or The Bronx in terms of population density and sprawl. There's another state and another state of mind beyond I-95. 

On the far side of the Connecticut River, which is where I and my wife live, that's not the case. I'm sure it's a little different now, but not too much, but when I arrived here in the fall of 1991 there were as many people in all of New London County as there were in Offenbach Germany, the city my family and I had lived in. 

One of the biggest difference in the Connecticut in which I live and the one you mainly think about is the light pollution and lack of it at night. Which brings me back to that moon that seemed to follow us everywhere as it grew larger and larger in the sky during the last few days. 

Full Moon Sky by Laurent Laveder

Without diffused ground light, I stand in my yard and look at the night sky and feel very small and alone despite the forty or so thousands of people who actually live in Norwich. It always reminds me of being a young child when we lived on Bloomfield Avenue in Franklin Township and I'd hear a noise at night outside and sneak a peek through the blinds thinking, I guess, I could see a sound though as an adult in the daytime I realize that makes no sense. 

But in the middle of the night, especially with a full moon against a star-filled soon to be Winter sky, when I look up I shiver just a little and not always from just the cold. Maybe you too?
-bill kenny