The Man in the Moon!

Today, while reading the story of ‘Why do dogs howl at the moon?’ to my four year old son, I found my eyes welling up with tears. It is actually one of the better stories I’ve read, of the many that are available on the same topic. The dog and the rabbit were the best of friends even though they were poles apart (one loved carrots and the other meat). One day a spaceship appears and a moon man comes out of it, aims his stun gun at the dog and zaps him. The rabbit, however, at the very last minute jumps in the way, takes the blow and protects his friend the dog. The dog is knocked unconscious and when he comes to he finds his friend the rabbit missing. He runs helter-skelter searching for his friend but none of the animals seem to know where his friend is. And that’s why, on full moon nights, when he sees the shadow of his friend on the moon the dog howls out and calls to his friend, whom he has sorely missed. The best part of the story was the author asking us to not throw stones at dogs when they howl on a full moon night, for all they are doing is calling out to their long-lost friend, the rabbit.    

Why did this story bring tears to my eyes? There is, for many people, nothing more romantic than a moon-lit night or a walk by the beach on a full moon night. The moon, in all its many shapes (full, half, crescent, sliver), has always held an undeniable attraction for me. Thinking back to my childhood I wonder whether it was all those Enid Blytons that I read, where wonderful things began to happen as soon as the moon slipped out of the blanket of the sky? Or was it the many Georgette Heyers that I soon progressed to, where lissome lasses fell in love with roguish rakes by the light of the full moon?? And of course, how can I ever forget all the horror flicks my siblings watched by the dozen, where the full moon and a few lonely scattered clouds set the stage for all sorts of werewolves (from my childhood, none were as hot as Taylor Lautner’s Jacob), vampires and ghoulish fiends.

When I fell in love for the first time I would steal glances at the moon in the sky and wonder what he was doing. Was he also looking at the moon and thinking of me? Perhaps it is then that I conceived of the moon as this big bright mirror in the sky that would reflect my love and longing to him, when he looked up at the sky, at perhaps that very moment. For years after, moon or no moon, I would think of him as I nursed a broken heart and cried myself to sleep.

What is it about the moon that is so achingly beautiful, so romantic, so tragic and yet, so magical? Perhaps it is the fact that, from time immemorial, lovers have met and loved and parted by the light of the moon. Even today, I find tears in my eyes every time I remember the story that Wolverine narrates in one of the many X-Men movies, the story of the Wolverine and the Trickster. Now who in their right minds wouldn't want to go console someone as delicious as Hugh Jackman?

As they say, the perfect relationship/man is not real and a real relationship/man is not perfect. Perhaps that's why the moon, for me, is all that is perfect, all that is magical, all that is enthralling and all that is too good to be true. Like his love. Like his promises. Like his kisses. Like his smiles. All perfect and none of them real. My man in the moon!!