Hunter’s Moon

It is an October morning. I can hear the woosh of the boiler in the basement as it turns on and the sound of the steam as it escapes the radiator. Last night, after a salad, Pasta Pomodoro, and steak dinner alone at the bar of Chaz Palminteri’s, I drove to the Sound along the coast of Rye, parked in Playland’s lot, and took a few photos of the Hunter’s Moon. This year’s Hunter’s Moon is a Supermoon because its elliptical orbit is closer to the Earth. I used to play Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” for Norma and asked our friend Meg to play it on the radio on the first anniversary. I loved to watch her dance. I loved to watch her do just about anything, but when she would dance, laugh, sing, or mouth the words to the song, the way she moved her body pulled at my heart.

On the way home, in the moonlight, I could see the leaves were midway through their costume change, and the pumpkins and Halloween decorations were on the lawns along the way. Thanksgiving will soon follow, and Christmas trees will be chopped and dragged through the snow soon after. This will be my third set of holidays since she died.

I can barely remember the events of the first year without her. My son Mark came home to help me care for Norma in late October 2021 and stayed until the end of February. She died on January 17th, 2022, the same day my mother died 17 years earlier. My mother was 85, and Norma was just 68 years old. Forty-five of those years, we had been married—let’s say 47 years together.