Lunar Eclipse Tonight - Will I see it?

Tonight I hope to go somewhere I can see the lunar eclipse. With all the trees around my house, I can't see the moon until it is straight overhead. In south Georgia where I used to live, the land was flat and I could just walk a little way to an open pasture, lie on a blanket and see all of the sky from east to west. Here, I will drive to the lake, park up on the dam level, and see it, I'm sure.

Life in the mountains is much different from life on my beloved farm where I grew up. I don't remember hardship as a child although we had little money. I had my sister to play with every day and my sweet and loving mother always near. I didn't miss what I didn't know others had, like fancy dolls or toys. I used my imagination, as did my sister, Gay. We played farm using Daddy's tobacco bags with their string ties as wagons for our horses which were Daddy's empty match boxes. Sometimes we played farm under the big oak tree. I would be the horse pulling the plow (a long tooth rake) while Gay handled the reins, a long hay string that reached from my mouth to her hands. 

When I think about playing farm, I realize that was what we saw day in and day out--my father and my brothers working on the farm. When we weren't playing farm, we played with my sister June's cosmetic bottles and her high heel shoes. The bottles were all sizes, and they made fine families of grown ups with children. The bottles fit into the shiny shoes, and we pretended the family was going for a ride in the car.

The two of us lived in our imagination. 

When we went to bed at night, we composed stories in our head until we fell asleep. I learned in later years that my father did the same thing. He read western novels by  Louis L'Amour. Before he fell asleep, he made up his own western stories. I wish he had written them down. I'd love to know what he thought about. 

Tonight's Moon

When I go out tonight to see the moon, I'll think about all the moons I've seen in my life, who I was with when I gazed up at the night, where I was at the time and why I remember them. We remember things for a reason. If there is no reason, we don't remember. Maybe I'll take a notepad and jot down my thoughts as I watch what happens in the sky.

Do you have any moon-watching memories? I hope you will share them in the comments. 

EUDORA WELTY SAID IT BEST

"I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." --Eudora Welty

I have two lovely friends who grew up with normal loving parents. They suffered no hardships in life, and seem to have had no disfunctionality in their homes. Several times I've heard these friends comment on the sheltered lives they lived and because tof that, they sometimes wondered if their writing was as interesting as work by those who grew up poor, in a broken home, or who lost a parent as a child.
Neither of them had a sister who ran away from home and married at 14, or no one in their past lived in a trailer park with a one-legged man who drank all day, they did not grow up with a father who made moonshine, and no one in the family birthed a child in Wal-Mart. Unique incidents like those above find their way onto to the pages of best selling books these days.
But the writing of both my friends resonates with me, and I admire the humor and pathos in their work.
Like Welty, they use their imaginations, bring the daring from within, to create short stories and authentic poems.
To me, that is the fun of fiction - reaching down inside and bringing up situations that only I can create. I have a book idea that I hope one day to put on paper. The setting is a retirement community. The main characters are three elderly women, feisty and funny. That is all I'll say now, but hopefully one day I'll dig down inside and find my daring. And then I'll tell this tale.

Meanwhile, I ordered Joan Cannon's book, Maiden Run, and I am waiting to receive it. I love the cover and from reading the summary, I am sure it is a book I will enjoy reading.