Last night I watched the full moon rise over the peaks behind the house.
I waited with anticipation, as the day before, I had spontaneously looked up to see a very-near-full moon hanging in a dusty pink sky just above the world. I had been so struck by its presence, that the next day I was determined to catch her in the act.

In my naiveté I imagined the moon rose more or less at the same time everyday, give or take a few minutes, like the sun does.
It doesn’t.
Although I knew it had to be around about the same time as sunset when it is full. In the end though, to be safe, Angelo used his special ‘space’ app to determine exactly when and where the moon would rise, so we need not shiver for hours in the dark.

It was not too cold yesterday and I was exited. Jumping up and down to keep warm was just an excuse.
My daughter and I wished upon Venus, who also appeared to be a willing hopeful, hanging out with us, twinkling like a tiny jewel.
Then, without warning, floodlights lit up over the mountain – white light inched its way, creeping like a spider, until eventually, a full-fat Camembert of a moon was blazing in the pitch black sky.
It was momentous.

But it was only today that I realised we had watched the last full moon of 2016 rise.
I’m glad I made such a big deal of it. The moon will be waning now until the end of the year and 2017 will start with a new moon.
So 2016 slips away like a dying moon… as it should.

I have not written for this blog in months. I have felt mute. Thoughts form in my mind but never take shape. I think, I feel, but its too hard to comment, to engage. I feel like I am on autopilot and I am amazed at what a great job I am doing by not crashing into walls on an hourly basis. Walls and ditches that have recently appeared out of nowhere.

2016 – you are a beast. But you are not unknown. Collectively we have imagined you in all your guises.
You have always existed.  In movies, in nightmares, in conspiracy theories, in the headlines of the past and future.
When I was a girl I always played the knight, never the princess. I wanted to ride a horse and have a lance and a sword, and I wanted to do battle (no slaying dragons please, I’m vegetarian). I drew inspiration from Joan of Arc, Monkey and Luke Skywalker and felt there had to be a worthy cause to die for.
No greater adventure than to die for something bigger than you. Something important. A tragic end is a hero’s end.
Dying was the best bit, it’s when you know you’ve won because the story ends.

There is so much dignity in death.
So here’s to the death of a monster and to those fallen soldiers who went that way this year. So many great names and souls who have gone on… perhaps to do great work somewhere else, beyond our realm.

Their work was done here and they got the prize.

“Little man,” I said, “tell me that it is only a bad dream– this affair of the snake, and the meeting-place, and the star. . . ”

(…)

“There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle. He remained motionless for an instant.  He did not cry out. He fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound, because of the sand.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery