Zhongqiujie
Today is the Moon Festival. The weather is perfect. The sun is resplendent, the breeze carefree, the sky cloudless. All the windows in the house are thrown open, inviting the balmy autumn air and light to dance across the kitchen tiles while spaghetti sauce simmers on the stove and kale is stemmed, washed, and cooked. The hum of the washing machine mingles with outside noises: a barking dog, Mrs. Wilson's pleasant warble wafting over from next door, kids playing in the street. The cats sunbathe languorously on windowsills, lifting their heads only long enough to paw idly at the occasional passing insect.
Today is the Moon Festival, and while my mother celebrates with family and friends a world away in the jolly old PRC, my celebration will be a more solitary endeavor, punctuated by naps and rehearsals and a startling lack of moon cakes in my immediate vicinity.
Tonight, the moon will be shining bright as day, and I will curl up on the patio with a blanket, a book, and a giant mug of tea. I will briefly wonder how I could have possibly let myself be so lackadaisical as to squander away a perfect afternoon of practice time when I should have been working on the twenty-odd things I have on my plate. Then I will take a sip of tea. It will scald my tongue at first as it always does, and I will forget about my non-problems, and I will look at the moon, and I will open my book, and I will be content, because
Today is the Moon Festival.