Please, stop talking about everything lunar
Megan Orr, Opinions Editor
Did y’all hear about the recent whatever, whatever eclipse? Because I sure did. In fact, I stood out in the freezing cold, peering out from under the canopy of my back deck and through the trees at what looked like… well, it was the moon. It was maybe a little orange or something, but it was the moon. You may have guessed that it wasn’t of my own volition that I was standing outside, my socks growing damp and hairs raising on my arms to stare at what is always there. I’m over it. I only want to hear about the moon if it isn’t there anymore, because that would be worth getting off the couch for.
First of all, it seems like it’s pretty much once a month that something new and fascinating is happening up there and I really couldn’t care less. How new and fascinating and impossible can it be if it’s happening all the time? I get it, the moon controls the tides and is powerful and cool, but it’s cold or hot or boring outside and I don’t care. Not to mention, if something really captivating is happening everyone posts pictures and time lapses that are way better quality than what I can see from down here on my deck. If I am really interested I will just catch it on social media, then maybe I will take a gander outside if it seems like it truly can’t be missed.
It is entirely possible that my indifference to the moon is due to my childhood. I remember one such ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ eclipse where my dad and I stayed up all night, camped out by the dining room window. We watched the moon fade away slowly through the toilet paper roll telescopes we had made and then miraculously reappear again. I recall feeling the immensity of the occasion, an almost sadness that this was probably the only time ever that my dad and I would get to watch something like this together. In retrospect, little Megan should have skipped the melancholy overthinking, thrown her toilet paper roll in the trash (this was before recycling was a thing) and gotten a good night’s sleep in her own bed. This shit happens all the time!
I would go on to see many more eclipses just like that one, and each and every time they would lose just a bit more of their wonder. I mean, a lunar eclipse is just the earth getting in the way of the sun and moon, nothing truly magical about it. Again, let me know if the moon actually disappears, otherwise, just keep posting your HQ pics so I don’t have to get off the couch.