This is what happens on a clear night when I cannot sleep, and the moon is full.  I prowl through my house in the dark with a camera.  No tripod.  Just my own unsteady hand.

It’s playtime.

I prop myself against a wall and shoot, trying to capture the lamp-lit windows of my neighbors’ houses.  The shutter stays open for an eternity.  My camera weighs a ton.  I am not steady enough.  The lights look like flames.  The reflection from the window throws itself across the room to where I am standing; the moon is a big white puddle on my floor.

The den has a pair of windows and an atrium door – a little more shimmering light.  A patch of green appears beyond the balcony.  Proof of spring.  A tiny voice that whispers, I’m here.

In this room a window placed too high; a mistake I regret making now, but too late to change.  A cabala of lights beyond the trees seems to agree.  What WERE you thinking they ask.

My studio is a room with four windows and no curtains.  I used to paint here.  Now I write.  The room has been overrun by books.  And words.

I love this skulking around the house in the dark, while my husband sleeps, completely unaware that I am up.  I feel like a child guarding a secret that no one knows but me.

You must promise not to tell.