Cheshire moon

I obsess. People who know me well know this. Molly, for instance, knows my obsession with pumpkins and hay rides, which compels me to write long letters to her each year beginning in September and ending somewhere in November that describe my intense longing to visit a pumpkin patch and to go on a hayride. I have no control over this obsession. I have to write the letters or to face the real possibility that I'll lose my mind to pumpkinmania. She tolerates these letters, and I appreciate it.

She also may have begun to discern my obsession with Cheshire moons. When she visited in February, we sat out on the front porch, enjoying the mild climate and the meandering conversation of friends who have been apart for a year. There was a Cheshire moon that night. She had never heard the term before, and I don't know where I heard it. But that night was the first time I ever thought about this particularly gleeful phase of the lunar cycle. It's strange and unsettling to see that disembodied smile.

I ask God for signs. Not for the sort of signs that tell me if I'm making the correct choices, like a kid during a test saying "psst" to the much smarter kid over one desk. But signs that...I don't know...that we have something in common. That we laugh at the same things. That the same things make us happy or sad or angry.

One day, for instance, I was really hooting about something that I found profoundly funny. But it was also something that I thought might be considered distasteful to laugh at, in God's much more sophisticated eyes. Like giggling about the words "boobies" or "boogers," in the presence of someone with a SOHO sense of humor. So I decided to check in because I don't want him to think that I'm a big dummy. I said, "Hey, God, that's funny, right? You think so, too. You can tell me." But then it occurred to me that I would have no idea what God would sound like if he was laughing along with me.

Just at that moment, no kidding, somewhere way high over my head, just out of sight, this flock of seagulls went reeling towards the river, making their seagull sounds that went just like this:

harharharharharharharhar

Well, that was it. I was pretty sure that it must have been a sign, which relieved me to no end. But it also made me wonder if God does think words like "booger" and "booby" are funny, too. Then I decided that if he made boogers and boobies, then he is certainly entitled to laugh at them. My friend Jennie said once that God must have a sense of humor because he made people with big butts.

So, back to the Cheshire moon, which is where I began. There was a Cheshire moon last night, just a little lop-sided like a grin. I was sure that it was a sign. How nice that the sky smiles down on us every once in a while.