Stolen Night

From my road trip around Northland, New Zealand

Tokerau Beach

One of the things I like about a road trip is the unexpectedness of the road. Some of the time it is annoying and frustrating—like when a campsite is closed, the Google map has given you false information, and the next campsite is too far, and you are late for the sleep that you lost to the rain the night before. Every now and then, you come across something beautiful and breathtaking!

I got out of my tent, having already made a decision to spend the rest of the night inside the tent. I had forgotten to take a Panadol to help my cold-plagued body rest. The cold accompanied me from the first day as if it wanted to go on this road trip too. A long while ago, I figured the best cure for a cold is a good rest. An aching body often gets in the way of a good rest, and a painkiller often helps.

After grabbing the pill from the car, my eyes followed the trail of sparsely located stars on the horizon. The higher I raised my eyes, the denser the stars got. There it was, the Milky Way before my naked eyes. I had never seen these many stars in the sky—all shining bright against a pitch-black space. It gave the illusion that all of them had come to watch me. I decided to lie down and watch back the stars for the rest of the night.

I tried to take photos, but my phone couldn’t see it. While tweaking my phone camera settings, a bright orange glow over the ocean caught my eye. It looked like a bushfire. In a split second, I knew what to expect—not an unfamiliar thing. It was the moon rising over the Pacific Ocean. It reminded me of the moon rise in Tanjung Pinang, which my friends and I used to watch on stolen nights. We weren’t allowed to leave the camp from 6pm to 6am, but we risked it anyway just to watch the moonrise.

In a moment, the moon’s full face came on the top of the water, the only time we could actually measure the distance it walks. It kept rising higher and higher in the sky. A faint shadow fell behind the moon, touching the ocean. All the surrounding sky areas were painted light gold, just enough to see them from a distance. As the light touched the ocean surface, it burned brighter and followed a narrow line all the way to my toes that touched the far end of the wave at the beach.

The moon itself shone brighter as it rose higher in the sky. You knew it was happy. I could literally see two eyes, one slightly distorted and a faint nose and mouth, and a blushed cheek like a baby face. It looked like the moon knew it was beautiful. There was no sun to outshine it.

So dominant
So present
It stood there.

So little
I had forgotten myself.

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