I saw the crescent

It was a little nippy tonight--I had to put on a jacket to go out and watch the moon--but not enough to keep us indoors. The clouds were very coquetteish, and despite the sky being about sixty percent cloudy, the moon was clouded over about ninety percent of the time. Gaps in the cloud cover would fill suddenly as they approached the moon, or the wind would shift ever so slightly. However, just before totality, a great big open area started creeping up. And then the wind completely reversed, piling a big thick mess of clouds in front of the moon.
I was so frustrated, I nearly forgot to get out the copper pans and bang on them to frighten off the dragon. As usual, the police were just arriving with their own noise makers when I went inside, arriving only after they might have been some help.

It's odd.

It's not seeing friends again. It's not driving the stretch of 101 that I took to work pretty much every day for five years. It's not familiar places, old haunts, or food.
It's a banged up saucepan sitting the dishwasher--scraped, beaten, clinging to life, having survived the trip down I-5 with me to California in the first place, as one of my few possessions that made into the back of the pickup truck on that wet El Nino-enthralled arrival day because I knew that cooking my own food was going to be key to survival in this new place.

That's what first says to me "This is the life you left behind."