“Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars.”
I’ve always admired Frank Sinatra’s ode to affection…and the moon – a mid-tempo memento of a love larger than life. Recently, however, the classic anthem that has echoed in our minds for years took on new life – with its title serving as the WiFi password in the house that my friends and I stayed in this past weekend. And while we weren’t exactly on Jupiter or Mars, we were the closest I’ve ever felt to space: Joshua Tree, California.
Drive far enough through a dry sea of mountains and mystique, and you’ll reach a Spanish-inspired desert oasis. Two rustic black gates gently creaked open, cutting through a warm mist that swayed against our skin. We were led down a sandy driveway that was paved amongst endless cacti, and the quiet promise of the adventure that was to come. Once we reached the entrance to the house, pushed open two towering caramel doors and stepped inside, we were greeted by the moon-man himself. There he was – Frank Sinatra, painted in stunning hues of indigo, cobalt, orange and gold, staring back at us. I wondered why our host decided to devote such precious real-estate in the house to Frank, taking up one of its largest walls to commemorate the crooner. After speaking to our host to let him know we had successfully arrived, we went ahead and asked why the house was speckled with Sinatra. As it turns out, he used to own it, and lived in it years ago. (No wonder the WiFi password was named, quite literally, “FlyMeToTheMoon”).
It all made sense now. What wasn’t as clear to me, though, was how I became so blessed to have a group of friends who turned a spontaneous trip away into an intimate birthday celebration for me.
As much as I adore twirling around a big, bright dance floor with friends overflowing beyond its borders, scaling down the celebration felt refreshing – even humbling. This year, as I completed another journey around the sun, I was surprised with the gift of quaint simplicity – ringing in twenty-seven sitting around a glowing fire-pit in the middle of the desert, with some of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever encountered, right beside me. Together, we channeled our most authentic, unfiltered selves. Picture fifteen silhouettes caught in a canvas of never-ending starlight – dancing in cowboy hats, spilling orange punch out of paper cups, picking out rainbow confetti from each others’ hair, revealing our most prized confessions to one another between songs, exploring the grounds like children, and laughing until tears slid off our lashes and dropped onto the golden sand beneath our boots.
On this birthday, after a challenging period when everything was uncertain and left up in the air, I finally felt grounded again. I was re-introduced to a mentality rooted in joy, a way of life entrenched in the values of hope and exuberance that I almost forgot how to practice. Over the past year, I was confronted with hurdles grander than Joshua Tree’s tallest monuments: incredible losses that took pieces of my heart along with them, moments of discovery that thrusted me into daunting, uncharted territories – out in the world and within me, contemplations of the colorful identity I strive to uphold in a world that felt very bleak at times, and an air of loneliness that we all grappled with, in one way or another.
Even in the midst of a weekend fueled by happiness, I urged myself to take the time to reflect on this past year. And as I did so, I almost felt guilty for celebrating myself. But as we continued to sit before the fire on our last night at the house, a realization came to light: if we remain complacent in our pain, we will never overcome it. When life gives us hell, we must dare to dance in the heat until the flames of our sorrows burn to ashes. Yes – there are some heartbreaks we can’t fully extinguish, ones that flicker faintly for life. But maybe our ability to persist, even with our pain, can shed light on our strength and our capacity for triumph. After all, it’s the darkness of the sky that allows us to see its stars – or the moon, for that matter.
Reflecting on this past weekend, I would have never expected to celebrate my twenty-seventh trip around the sun in the home of a man who just wanted to fly to the moon, in the name of love. The irony is almost magical. While the journey was anything but linear, as we danced in the desert together somewhere between Jupiter and Mars, I never felt more of a sense of belonging than I did then and there – right here on Earth.
To the promise of many more moments in moonlight for us all. May we continue to dance.
Love,
