Moon Child

I love that my first word as a child was moon. It is the perfect word to mark my linguistic beginning, although I cannot explain exactly why. Sometimes a person simply knows deep inside what is true and what is not.

One warm Wailuku night I was held on the golden beach outside our home. I stretched my chubby little finger to the sky, like Adam reaching toward God, and named the floating white lantern. Moon: it was my first identifiable word other than the traditional gurgles of “mama” and “dada.” This fact alone feels like magic to me. It makes me feel set apart, like Moses in his basket of bulrushes.

I wonder what was happening in my infant brain when I gazed at the silver glow and watched its rotund reflection dance in roll of waves. Did I see two moons? Did I understand them to be one? The image I hold in my heart, even now, is one where my deepest self surrenders to the mystery and majesty of the way things are.