One of the things that
really impressed me about Allison and Reed, as individuals and as a couple, is
that they are really solid, down to earth people, but at the same time, really
deep. I had some really profound discussions with them, from which I feel I
learned a lot. And when I sat down to write these remarks, I was reminded of a
really deep song by the Waterboys, “The Whole of the Moon”. Allow me to quote a
few lines:
I pictured a rainbowI had flashes
But you saw the plan…
I was grounded
While you filled the skies…
I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew…
Yes, you climbed on the ladder
With the wind in your sails
You came like a comet
Blazing your trail…
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon
Nobody is really sure what
Mike Scott, the Waterboys’ lead singer, meant when he wrote this song. Is he
talking about a lover? It is quite possible to interpret the song this way.
Many of us, when we find that someone, that fills our skies, might say
something like Reed does, in answering
the question of why he wishes to wed Allison now. He says that she is the
missing piece to his puzzle. With her the crescent, becomes the whole of the
moon. She changes the very shape of his existence. Going on 16 years now, every
rainbow he has pictured, she has held in her hand, and only together, soaring
over it, has he felt he could truly take flight.
Allison, by the way, answers
this question, as to why she desires to wed Reed now, a little more
practically, ”Because it’s been 16 years... Homeboy took
his sweet time...” Now humor aside, there is great truth here. For many, if not
most of us, there is a degree of gambling or at least making an educated guess,
when we marry. To be blunt, how do I know that simply because I love the you of
today, I will love the you of tomorrow? We hope that through seeing the
crescent, we know what the rest of the moon looks like. For these two, however,
no guessing or gambling is needed. They have been together, through thick and
thin. They have seen in each other the whole of the moon.
Now, some speculate, that
Mike Scott is, actually, talking about himself at different phases of life. And
he is not saying there was anything wrong or deficient at the crescent phase.
Most of the time when we draw a moon, we draw a crescent. The crescent is
beautiful. It too lights in the midnight sky. Indeed, most couples who, like Allison
and Reed, meet in college, get married in their twenties, when as individuals
they are still in that crescent phase. As individuals, they each have yet to
uncover who they really are. Not Allison and Reed, though. They have the
privilege that few of us have, to meet each other each in their own individual
crescent phase, and while together, to each grow into their own, patiently
waiting for their individual puzzle pieces to fall into place, until they each
could clearly see the whole of the moon in their individual lives.
The truth is we don’t know,
nor does it matter, what Mike Scott meant, but I choose to believe both
interpretations as valid, and in Allison and Reed, I see both. Indeed, their
words about each other, individually and as a couple, make this well evident.
As Allison says, in a sentiment mutually shared, “He is the one who motivates
me to make changes, be who I really want to be… He stands by my side and always
has my back... He always goes for what he wants, regardless of how hard it
might be… We laugh at each other. [We are] sometimes stubborn and hard headed…
but in the end - my life is with him. At the end of each day, he’s always the
last one I want to see.”
