Listen, I never thought the first lunar eclipse I'd ever see would be from Beijing — standing on cold, hard cement from a temple theatre in a Hutong no less. Later, when the long-haired man next to me at the bar said he'd seen too many eclipses in his life to get excited, the second-guessing began. Surely this couldn't be the first lunar eclipse I'd ever seen. Surely I was romanticizing it as I walked away from the lit up theatre into a darkness unimaginable in New York City and craned my neck until my head almost rolled off. Surely this was only the most beautiful eclipse I'd ever seen, framed by the oldest wooden theatre in China built during Kangxi's reign over 300 years ago. If my life were a wuxia movie, I would have leaped to the roof with dainty feet and scaled the city with the moon burning behind me. Ordinary me could only stare hungrily, dropping all 21st century pretenses. There were talks of omens and auspiciousness, but mostly, there were people unceremoniously dropping matters at hand and tilting their head toward the sky. What a scene we made, dwellers of the ancient city, gazing at an ancient wonder that so many hundreds of years ago would have brought on whispers of the moon being eaten, ‘blood' spreading across its face.
In Beijing, it's these moments of calm that move me. When all that is said and done — the traffic-fatigue, the concrete jungle, modernity chipping away at the soul, something manages to steal you away and make you wonder if there was something in your blood that steer you toward the moon, waxing lyrics like giant poets forgotten by time:
花间一壶酒,独酌无相亲。举杯邀明月,对影成三人。 月既不解饮,影徒随我身。暂伴月将影,行乐须及春。 我歌月徘徊,我舞影零乱。醒时同交欢,醉后各分散。 永结无情游,相期邈云汉。
-《月下独酌》【唐】李白