So, now I shall talk every night. To myself. To the moon. I shall walk, as I did tonight, jealous of my loneliness, in the blue-silver of the cold moon, shining brilliantly on the drifts of fresh-fallen snow, with the myriad sparkles. I talk to myself and look at the dark trees, blessedly neutral. So much easier than facing people, than having to look happy, invulnerable, clever. With masks down, I walk, talking to the moon, to the neutral impersonal force that does not hear, but merely accepts my being. And does not smite me down.
The pure acceptance embodied by Sylvia Plath's wintry walk at night, stirs up the yearning for that acceptance found within Nature's unbiased solitude. We live in a hot, dry, desert city where it doesn't snow in the winter. So, crunching through moonlight illuminated drifts of glittering snow, gazing upon the silent neutrality of the silhouetted, bare-branched trees, to spill out my thoughts to a silvery moon that cannot hear but can only beam on me the brilliance of its light, can take place, at this present time, only in my imagination.
However, in the almost opposite geological environment we live in, that same moon still shines. And, although being surrounded by neon lights and the busyness of the city, there still remains the ability to fulfill that yearning. The winter's walk might be confined within the perimeter of our backyard. My footfalls may make a slight imprint on a dusty, dirt surface. The two, planted pineapple palms may whisper their neutrality through the rustling of their fronds as they gently sway in the soft, desert breeze. But the moon, that same glowing, impartial brilliance hovering up above me in the night sky, patiently and unconditionally waits for me to share my thoughts with it.