Passages

“It’s called the Full Strawberry Moon,” I said before tilting my head back to look up at the moon with him. “The Algonquins named it that to signal it as the time to gather ripe, wild strawberries. It’s also known as the Honey Moon, Mead Moon, and the Full Rose Moon. But…I like Full Strawberry Moon. It makes me think of summer. I got to spend time with you in summer. So, that’s my favorite. It’s also a blue moon tonight. A blue moon is the second full moon within a single calendar month. It only happens once or twice a year. Hence the once in a blue moon saying. People say that blue moons look bigger…some people even claim they look blue, and that’s where they got the name. But the moon is always greyish or white—only atmospheric conditions on Earth or an eclipse can make it look different colors. The moon is constant, unyielding. At least…for our lifetimes.”

It’s an odd thing, the concept of accepting kindness. It is like a habit or an addiction. When you find yourself being treated equitably time and again, it becomes second nature to believe that all people are good. That no one in the whole wide world is bad. That you can always rely on people doing the right thing for others, simply because it is the right thing to do. When you have gone without kindness—and it does not have to be for a very long time, it just has to be consistent—you become suspicious of all kindness. You begin to think that anyone who does something even remotely kind wants something from you. Furthermore, you begin to think of accepting kindness as a weakness because you want to prove to the unkind world that you did not need sympathy from it anyway. You set out to prove that regardless of how the world treats you, things will be fine. So, when the world gives you a break, you tell it to go fuck itself. Just because you can.