Granpa Moon Game

    Tonight there is a full moon in the starless night sky of Istanbul. I have to tell his story.

    Full moon has a very special place in our relationship with my boyfriend. We see the "Granpa Moon" (that is how children call him in Turkish) as a protector of our relationship and us personally. It may be because of that he was in the night sky, watching over us, at times when we were really happy and joyful. Every time he smiled upon us at times of happiness, we looked up and thanked him and prayed him to keep protecting our love and asked for more happiness. I know it sounds veeery cheesy, but we are such romantics, that we don`t care how other people would think of us and about our little game of love.

   I have another game to share with you: 

   Granpa Moon Game

   I had this weird game of mine since I was little. I would look at the moon, not just the full moon but every state of moon is important to me, and I would interpret his expression (the moon is a round cute face in my imagination), his emotional state and what he is doing. Some days (or should a say nights), he would be very happy like he has seen an old friend while he was wandering the streets of the old city, or some days he would look sad or sleepy or angry or whatever. I would play that game every time I encounter him in the sky. For example, the other morning, there was a half moon on the morning sky and it looked completely like a juicy slice of melon. I was happy for some minutes.

    After playing many times, I came to realize that what I attributed to be the Granpa`s mood is in fact my mood at the moment. In an unconscious way, I was analyzing myself and than making a judgment about it and than expressing it in a quite implicit way. Granpa Moon was my shrink for long years. I do not recall that I have told anyone about my story with the moon. I taught the game to my boyfriend though. he has been playing with me for some time now. I wonder how he feels while playing. Maybe I will ask next time.

    Although, as human beings, we are capable of being happy over very little details of ordinary life, it is that most of the time we don`t pay attention to our surroundings, small details or very obvious big things around us. I am not saying that everyone can be happy by merely looking at the moon, but why not try playing my game?