The light of the moon

The other night I looked up into the sky and gazed at the moon. It was just a sliver of a thing at first appearance, a soft yellow crescent just hanging in the sky. But, as I looked more closely, the dark shadow of the remainder of the moon was visible as it completed the circle. A lyric from my favorite Waterboys’ song came into my head:

I pictured a rainbow / You held it in your hands / I had flashes / But you saw the plan / I wandered out in the world for years / While you just stayed in your room / I saw the crescent / You saw the whole of the moon

I sighed, wondering how our focus can often be so different from someone else’s, how what we see can so dramatically diverge from what another sees when we’re looking at the same exact thing. Or person. How do you explain it?

There have been times in my life when what I see when I look at a person is dramatically different than what others might observe. Where I might see someone as fallible and imperfect, another might draw a far more negative conclusion. Whose perspective is more wrong – the one that sees the dark or the one that sees the light? How do we come to interpret and process the same object or person in disparate manners?

I have no answers, just instincts and optimism. My eyes might linger on that bright spot in the sky, while others can’t see beyond the darkness and I believe that’s their choice. While there are times when I may wish for that same negative perspective I know that, for me, I’ll continue to do my best to see the light and the whole of moon.