Devonne Brown

Moonlight Shadow, by Gabriele Corno

I meant to get the chairs under the deck before winter came, I really did. I enjoy watching the ducks and geese on the pond so much that I just didn’t want to move the chair. My chair. I moved all the other ones under the deck, that should count for something. 

I’m not a total slob, I know…trashy people have trashy ways. Mom and Dad would have been beside themselves if they saw that chair in the snow, but isn’t it lovely? On the nights when the moon is full, and deep snow covers the land, everything is a different shade of moonlight. 

I love the lines of shadow and blue, the colors of snow before the dirt finds it and crusts it over. The blanket of snow before hares and bunnies run through it. What is it about purity that attracts tarnish?

Judy Collins sang, “The moon’s a harsh mistress,” in the winter she is. She holds no love for you. The brighter, more beautiful she is, the meaner she can be. Hypothermia without death is the best she has to give in frost. Otherwise she’s got death in her eyes. See how quiet she is? Killing cold. 

When the lake’s not snowed over, and the world is warm again, I want to float on it without sunscreen in a strapless bathing suit, in a webbed floating chair, partially submerged to stay cool. I’ll need a tether for my Dollar Store life ring to hold my pizza pan, or floating side table. I need books, and stuff to write with in addition to my phone and drink. 

 I’ll tell you a secret. Nothing feels as good as a good old fashioned suntan. I have a goal to get a great tan this summer. It will look great with my white hair. I always thought I looked so much better with a tan. My skin damage was done when I was a little kid. I have nothing to lose at this point. 

I feel like laying out like my sister and I did when we were kids. We used baby oil and iodine on our skin and listened to music on a quilt in the grass  between 11:30 and 2:30, peak sun hours in the summertime. We baked that way for years, and how I do miss it. Indoor pools just don’t feel right. 

For a few summers, I built an eighteen by eight Cool Tub, eighteen inches deep by eight feet across. It was a plastic sided kiddie pool where I put a sand chair, a pizza pan on a float ring with my phone, a book, and a drink. There were way worse places to spend summer days, even if the rules wouldn’t allow cannon balls, or skinny dipping til dark.

The lake is beautiful tonight, isn’t it?