A Love Note

I sent a note to the Moon.

I sent a letter to the Moon.

I sent a love note to anyone who will be one day standing on the Moon.

I sent a love letter to anyone who will be longing for the moon before the Moon.

Footnote

1    Her name is Mona, Selene, Lune. She has a body. She has a farside. Her history began before we even looked at her. She is old but beautiful. She is rough though perfectly round. She is a stable artifact of the Earth, 238 855 miles away. She could be anything in 1839. But after half an hour of stillness, the copper plate changes its silver coating and we see her for the first time closely.

2    She is an illusion, mystery and myth. She is deified as a symbol of deepest spirituality. She has a sublime power even though she is far away — Or maybe that is precisely why she has it. She talks with oceans. She is a place for Gods. She is a God. She reflects cultural complexity and human dreams. Every time we look up to her, she is different. We almost touched her—Mercury, Gemini. But she was a trophy for the God of the Sun, Apollo.

3    We are convinced that we are ready. Everything seems prepared. We are close to the small step. We are risking our lives—she is an ancient symbol of death. We bring a golden olive branch to please her. She is (not) just a destination. Her rules are not “Earth-like”. Although they think of her as a matter of national competition, she barely cares.

Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, July 16, 1969, 08:32 a.m. EST. Estimated 600 million people watch his small step on the moon, giant leap for mankind.

It is the end of the beginning.

It is the Moon.

People used to send letters to each other in order to inform them about their lives. Letters, a physical artifact of past time, represent how people communicated. How people shared their thoughts, hopes, love, wishes. And after they sent it, they had to wait. Not seconds, not minutes, not hours, but days, weeks. Sometimes it can take even months to get an answer.

The letter, 1x1x1cm folded paper, looks like a torn out page from a book. The “foot” is strikethrough and replaced by “Love.” Each note is a step we did towards the Moon. In three steps, we changed the moon into the Moon. We changed the moon, and we changed too.⁠

I wrote about the moon, and I want it to share with anyone who will be standing on its surface and will be looking at the earth.

Reply to me. (the address on the backside)