The Night The Moon Kissed Me
In Central Texas, where the rolling green hills flirt with the clouds from a huggable distance, yearning for a tumble, there’s a big rock dome sticking out of the ground like Mother Earth’s exposed boob peeking from her dirt bra. The park seduces thousands of people every year, climbing the curves and raising their arms in a huff at the top many exclaiming to themselves, “why the fuck did I just do that?”
They call it Enchanted Rock. The latter part of her name being obvious, while the previous remains a mystery. To some.
It’s an ant hill by mountain standards rising only about 1,800 ft from the ground on a particularly perky day. Tourists and locals flock in by bus and truck and car and some weary brave souls even make the trek by bike. Boy Scouts dance around the skirts of the park earning badges, building little rock dams in the tiny streams winding through her timeless wrinkles.
She is a sight to behold from a distance, where scale plays tricks on the eyes like the sweet spot between your second and third beer. Where everything looks rosey and keen and ‘hell yeah’ you just want to intermingle with the love. But upon closer inspection her perky facade lifts and you see the truth of her. All granite and limestone and whatever rust colored crumble crust sits at the fringes of the Hill Country. Ever seen a tree grow out of stone? It’s not as impressive as it sounds.
But the park is a right of passage, a sink of time, a damn fine place for camping, and on the right night, under the right moon, with the right libation lifting my inhibitions, the site of my amorous encounter with the Mother of Tides.
It’s a hell of a hike with three days of gear and an ice chest a frat house would punch dry wall to defend. We lugged ourselves in, snaking between the formations where the snakes actually snake. We found a small clearing and dug in an ear shot from the trail, but not so close we couldn’t get away with a little illegal ground fire–we were absolutely most careful about controlling the bonfire it became.
By the time we settled in, the ice chest had become much lighter than Alpha Psi Why might prefer, and the bud had been tightly wrapped and puff-puff-passed. A magical thing happens when you lose your wits under the naked night sky, away from the light pollution, the noise pollution, the pollution. You find yourself more at home than you ever did against your mother’s breast. Perhaps there is some connection to my earlier proclamation on the voluptuous stone protrusion.
The little bluetooth speaker was whining something with a rabid beat accompanied by a mellow horse whisper of vocalizations and something in that baritone vibrato rattled my bladder and speed dialed nature. I slunk away with a cold beer in my fist, stumbling for the right place to drop trou without exposing myself to a snake, owl, or sleeping camper. Looking up, feeling the renewal of relief, I swear the moon winked at me. She was larger than I’d ever seen her, swollen in the night sky not so saturated with neon fluorescence. Running my hand through my sweaty hair in awe I exclaimed, possibly out loud, “what’s this?” at the discovery of a sneaky little doobie. I didn’t remember wrapping the potent penner, but never one to look a horse in it’s mouth, I replied to myself with a pleasant, “don’t mind if I do,” and took that first mighty puff, the big red cherry blazing and sending swirling clouds of piney smoke into the sky.
There is a magical alchemical balance to the dance of booze and weed. It’s a walk Texans are contrary to believe they walk mighty keenly. Whether on their little rubber tubes floating the river, laying in the back of their truck bed with a new girl, or stumbling up Mother Nature’s side boob. No, really, listen to any Texas country and you’ll find beer and weed a more likely duo than a farmer and his tractor.
But, there I was, under the effects of this marvelous cocktail, not three sheets gone, but definitely snuggled comfortably into that bed. Summiting E-Rock without a gasp of wheeze, full of breath and libation. I found myself atop her glorious mound, sitting among the tiny pocket pools of dancing moonlight. I laid back, mumbled to myself some drunkish poem only I could decipher, and remarked once again at the beauty and brilliance of the big cheese in the sky.
Perhaps I spoke aloud, as I am want to do when the sauce begins to settle in my frontal cortex, or perhaps a being such as her needs no verbal stimulation, but she (the moon) spoke back to me.
“I’m not made of cheese, you twat.”
Now, I do not know how much weed you smoke, or how much you drink to pass the time when stuck in the woods with two other men, but I am keenly aware of my tolerance and well-trained in the art of walking that line and I have never once heard or seen the moon speak. I shot up from my place on that cool dome, between the pools now black and rippling, looking for the source of that voice. I stumbled left and right in a drunk semi-circle looking and listening for the sniggers of my buddies playing at my misfortune. But I was alone as I will be on my second day six feet deep.
“And there is no man here.”
Her voice was a lullaby, flowing slowly, honey on the thickening air, tickling the tiny hairs of my ears. I looked up, my face painted in a warm silver glow and she was there, no longer the big punching bag in the sky pocked with craters. She was a sleek beauty, and hourglass bathed in a flowing silk that rippled and played with the light as only the ocean at night can otherwise do.
She cupped my chin with long slender fingers that left no impression in their genteel caress. My eyes remained locked on the inky black sky, unable or unwilling to take her in full view, stealing only what my peripherals could grab as she leaned cheek to ethereal cheek and whispered into my ear.
Her voice tickled down my back, over the mountain range of my spine, into the warm center and over that most pleasurable region.
Then I could feel the chill of her breath, the brush of her lips across my cheek. So close that Neil Armstrong and I could share stories. Then she kissed me.
I closed my eyes so tightly the sun erupted on the backs of my eyelids. Whether this was or was not the right response, it was the apex of our engagement.
And at once, I was sober as a judge.
When I opened my eyes again, the moon had returned to its place in the sky, all green stinky cheese and hungry little martian man. The pools around me regained their luminescence. And holy shit was I stoned.
I made my way back to camp where my buddies, comfortable with my not having returned and apparently none the wiser to the moon having left her place in the abundance overhead, had packed up shop for the night and retired to their tents. Standing there as an awe struck person is bound to do, I took one last peek up at that brilliant mistress of a satellite and I’m telling you, she winked at me!
