Looking for Daffodils in the Desert

Feb. 6.  Eight days past the New Moon.

This evening when I went out to pick up the mail I remembered the moon, and my resolution to pay attention to its phases. I had not gone out the night before, and tonight I found it, after sunset, high at midheaven so that to look at it, I had to crane my neck far back, and felt the twinge of the old neck injury I incurred years ago while lugging a heavy backpack on my shoulder in graduate school.

There it was, a fat Half Moon, slightly more than half a pie, as one would expect for today. Next to it---Mars. Lower in the western sky--Venus, big and bright above the twilight. The planets are making a parade right now, and the Moon is going visiting them, one to the other, having paid a visit toVenus and moving onto Mars.

Mars always reminds me of my undergraduate physics professor, who passed away last year in his 1990s. He is the reason I became a physics major when I went to Salem. 

I was missing Oregon in the last few days---not just long ago but from 2014 when we lived in SW Portland in the Hillsdale neighborhood. I always miss Oregon most this time of year, in early February. I think of the advance mildness of early spring, but with wonderful walks in the rain, and above all, daffodils. All those wonderful daffodils. Sometimes I see them here, in medians and other landscaped areas, but it feels like a shadow of the real experience. 

That being said, this is usually the best time of year here. That's why they have the golf tournament this week. This year it has been too hot lately during the day, however. Thankfully it cooled off a little today. We don't need summer yet, please.  Let me walk among my sweet memories and hope for a soothing rain.