The Very Same Moon
I let the dog out just after midnight.
I was sound asleep, and it was so dark, and I looked out in the backyard at the night sky, and thought, I miss traveling so much. I miss the ocean. I miss the adventures. I long to be cruising over the massive sea, waking up somewhere we’ve never been and knowing we will see something amazing.
I looked at the moon, and just for a moment imagined our back deck was not our deck, but the open deck of a great ship and the moon was not the moon over land, but the moon over the deep, dark sea.
And then I whisper-yelled for the dog to hurry up, and the next thought that jumped into my head was, it is the same moon, the very same one.
And our back deck isn’t just our back deck, but our vantage point — we are on an adventure — we are spinning through space on a giant ball.
I pictured the camera zooming out like Google Earth or the footage from the last spacecraft launch.
Me and the dog, standing in the moonlight on our back deck one minute and hurling through space and time the next. And I was filled with a flash of awe and gratitude so powerful that it woke me up.
We can wish for what we can’t have, or we can see that we already have what we want.
That’s gratitude, and if you practice it, it becomes a powerful enough presence in your life that you feel it even while sleepwalking and in the most mundane moments. Except with gratitude, there is no such thing as mundane.
I’m going back to sleep now. Good night, sweet dreams.
