I think this 'thing' got started many years ago, when the oldest daughter F. was working one summer at Girl Scout Camp up in Harris County, about forty-five minutes north of home. If you know me at all, you know what a great/compulsive correspondent I can be, a blessing and/or curse. Depending on how you enjoy reading chatty, innocuous, stream-of-consciousness daily trivia... you must, or you would not be reading this now?
When F. was spending weeks working at hot, buggy, scout camp, I often wrote her notes and cards - as I know what it is to be far from home and lonesome. And what a delight to find your name called when the mail is delivered. So I sent lots of little missives, an occasional purchased greeting card. You know: the ones that you Always turn over to see how highly you are valued by the sender, by seeing how much they paid for the card? Plus lots of mundane, dull happenings that occurred on the home front.
One of the greeting cards, I remember so clearly, I have a snapshot in my brain. A hand-drawn illustration of a little girl, dressed in old-fashioned clothing, on a window seat, in a quaint looking bedroom. Sitting there in the gloom, peering out at the night. And a big bright full moon shining down on the landscape, lighting a path across the floor of the interior of her room. I don't recall the specific wording that accompanied the card, but it was something like... 'that big bright moon you see up high, in the sky, is shining down on you and me.' So now, every time I look up, any time of day, and see the moon, be it a sliver of a crescent, turned up like a bowl. Or a half moon, looking like an illustration for a Mother Goose rhyme. Or a broadly grinning bright white full round circle. I give my girl a call, and say "I saw the moon". Which is code for: Thinking of you.
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