A full moon, a warm night

This piece was featured first on Oct 9 for One Good Thing, a weekly newsletter brought to you by Alexis Madrigal about his take on Bay Area art, culture & nature. Subscribe today.

Welcome to this newsletter, a sort of spin off of a thing I do during the pledge drive. Each newsletter will feature a mini essay about the people, places, experiences who make the Bay what it is.

I just got back from a run into the Oakland foothills, popping in and out of the cones of streetlights as I waited for the moon to rise up and over the hills. You could see it was coming, this yellow premonition, and then suddenly there it was: round and pockmarked, perfect.

You all know Bay Area seasons are not like other places’ seasons. Our summers and winters come in shards embedded across the calendar. And so when we get one of those big Charlie Brown Halloween Special moons and it’s warm enough to run around in a t-shirt, I go crazy. I need to be outside.

Maybe it’s my friend Liam’s fault. In the early days of the pandemic, he invited me up on a night hike in Wildcat Canyon in Berkeley one evening when the moon was full and the sky was clear. We weren’t the only ones who had the idea. When we arrived, it was a small party. Dozens of people were there taking photographs of the moon and each other, giddy in the surreal brightness. Our bodies threw tall shadows.

Liam and I walked along the paved path up to an overlook that let us take in the Bay. The hills lay dark before us, outlining the bowl of the Bay, which glowed with light so soft you wanted to touch it, scoop it up with your hands, lay down on it. Beyond the water, the city beamed orange, trails of light from water to hill peaks.

We shared a tiny slug of whiskey, happy to see each other in those days of isolation, and made our way back down the trail. The world was a little larger under the moon. We were a little closer to the planet and to everyone else out there, people who sought the special light in the warm air.

A night hike with a friend under a full moon on a warm night.

That’s your one good thing.

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Alexis Madrigal, Co-Host, Forum

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