Pink Moon Club, (I'm gonna keep on dancin' at the)
Plus: an invite for a special event coming up in July
On the night of the Pink Moon party, I headed north out of Davenport and drove out to the country to one of my favorite places in the Quad City Area, Miss Effie’s flower farm.
It’s a perfect place in and of itself, but I’ve gotten to know and become friends with the owner, (who writes a delightful, funny, honest and vulnerable diary here).
It was the hottest day we’ve had so far this year, or darn close, so I was happy to notice that out there, away from the river, it was breezy and felt at least 10 degrees cooler. I’ve got “that” blood type, though, so bugs were already trying to feast on me the second I stepped out of the car. I got my bug spray and lawn chair out of the trunk, sprayed myself thoroughly, and walked up into the yard to join the party.
I found Miss Effie (a.k.a, Cathy) and some of her friends monitoring a charcoal grill, atop which sat a stack of what looked like silver bricks but turned out to be foil-wrapped S’mores--a fancy Girl Scouts method unfamiliar to me (maybe because I never made it past Brownies). She was barely done giving me a hello hug when she ushered me over to a woman with long dark hair I was certain I’d never seen at Effie-related events before. And she introduced me as a journalist.
“Well, I mean, I was,” I said sheepishly. “Like, twenty years ago.”
“My name is E.,” the woman said, and I noticed that she had the accent of a native Spanish speaker. She was immediately friendly and warm, and as we chatted for a few minutes - and I swatted at the gnats and other bugs that were still dive-bombing me-- I learned that she is a journalist, an actual, current-day one. Originally from Colombia, she is here working for a local news outlet. As she shared her background with me, including her reporting focus, I was surprised and excited to learn that we in the QC have been able to “get” someone like her. Even better, she likes it here.
“My friends were really laughing when I told them I was coming to this place,” she said, smiling. “When you fly into the Moline airport, it’s just like, there’s nothing here but the fields! But I really like it here.”
She talked about enjoying the people she’s been meeting as she has worked on stories. After a while, all of us moved over to join some of the others who’d arrived earlier in the evening. All of us were hoping to watch the Strawberry Moon in a lunar standstill, meaning seeing the full moon at a point in the sky lower than it will be again for 18 years. We waited, watched the sky, and chatted. I swatted bugs.
As the evening passed, we talked about lightweight things, but also about the terrifying immigration raids and the disturbing reason they’re happening. One woman lamented that she never expected to be living her retirement years in fear, noting that she worries for a particular loved one’s future, in this increasingly fraught and heartless-seeming turn our country has taken.
As it passed 9 p.m., we all began to check our apps more and more. What time will moonrise be? One woman’s app of choice said 9:32, while another’s said 9:36. So we decided to see whose app was correct. The journalist put Google and ChatGPT in a Faceoff to see who would be the most correct.
Still, the sky darkened, and where was the moon? We were in a perfectly flat (ish) place, with nothing obstructing our view, and it didn’t seem cloudy. Still, nothing appeared on the horizon.
I wasn't ready to give up. But my folding camp chair was becoming uncomfortable, (is it just me, or has the seat grown narrower?), so I walked back to where I’d parked my car on the side of the gravel road to switch it out for a blanket. As I was about to return, I stopped for a moment and it hit:
Sure, maybe we haven’t had the solstice yet, and maybe it feels like we literally just had Memorial Day and graduation ceremonies etc. But this is it: summer is here. Out in the field across from Cathy’s farm, I watched as fireflies lit up and disappeared, lit up and disappeared. I listened to late-evening sounds of the country and felt the warm breeze.
As I age, and each season seems to race by more and more quickly, I know that I should savor every magical part of summer.
And yet will I do that this year? Or will I stay inside in the AC most nights because I hate bug bites (and bug spray)?
Will I make sure to capture—and silently give gratitude to the heavens for—every beautiful sunset, every beautiful bird song?
I want magic in my life. Much more magic. And I know that it’s on me to make myself notice it when it’s in front of me.
By now, a few people were folding up their lawn chairs, apoligizing about needing to face an early morning. Cathy apologized in return, for the moon not doing what she had asked it to do. Everyone chuckled and thanked her for trying.
“Is there haze or something?” I said. “Canadian wildfires?” Because 9:32 passed, and then 9:36.
And so the rest of us decided to call it a night around 10 and head home. I said to the journalist, “We should get coffee sometime!” and she agreed, readily putting my number in her phone and then sending me a hello text.
As I headed back toward Davenport—as soon as I’d turned off the gravel road and onto the blacktop heading east toward Long Grove, can you guess what was right there in the sky? A perfectly visible, pastel-orange (not strawberry) orb, about half covered by clouds that we hadn’t known were there to be peeked through. It was just more to the east than we’d been looking, I guess, or maybe our watching spot had more down in a hollow than it seemed. All the way back to Davenport, I attempted to pay attention to the road, white sneaking gazes at the moon out my driver’s side window, at the same time.
And I was also doing something else: thinking about how I would’ve experienced this same event a year ago.
Back then, I had yet to experience the trifecta of factors that I can now see were happening at the same time and possibly changing me forever: discovering that yet a(nother) man I’d been spending significant time with and getting attached to had lied and was not in fact single; working up the courage (and funds) to travel to a “speed dating” event, at the culmination of years and years of swiping on “dating” apps, only to finally and fully realize how demoralizing and scammish all of it had been; and the flaming heap of misogyny that was the 2024 election.
A year ago, I’d have driven home feeling sadness and shame, for the fact that I was leaving yet another social event without having met an unmarried or unpartnered man. I’d have felt the pang about the fact that June is my birthday month, and “once again, I’m turning another year older without making any progress.” Progress on getting dating experience, getting to know someone and develop a trust with them, seeing if there’s any chance we have anything in common, let alone any aligned values or interests, same desired level of connection. “Progress” toward not dying alone.
Driving home under that orange moon, I thought about the work I’ve been doing to try to stop thinking that way—aided by everyday women speaking up on TikTok, and writers like
and —and how it seems to be actually working. It has led me to be able to enjoy an event like the Pink Moon party even when yes, it’s true, the phone number I collected was once again from another woman, a new female friend (it happens practically everywhere I go, including at speed dating). But what’s new is that I’m finally able to see that as the highlight, not the consolation prize.I’d likely still have struggled—as I have so many times in the past—if the event had been filled with couples, wrapping their arms around each others’ shoulders and cuddling in closer, or holding hands as they stroll the lovely scene.
But on this night, I was surrounded, as I often am, by strong, independent, smart, resilient and inspiring women.
I noticed the magic that was right in front of me.
Proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Check out a recent issue here. By the way:
Wanna join me in Madison County and hang out with other Iowa writers in July?
Join members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative on Saturday, July 26, for a private screening of Storm Lake, the award-winning documentary about Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Art Cullen and his family’s fight to keep local news alive in small-town Iowa. Get all the details here!
Just upgrade to paid subscriber status (to my column), to any writer’s in the IWC, or to the roundup as a whole, and you’re in! (Please see the RSVP, though, in that above link.)
Thank you so much for being here! Pink-moon-bright shout-out to reader MJ, who just became a paid subscriber. Comments, follows, likes and subscriptions mean everything.
Lookie! Some really nice person bought me coffee!
Three coffees, in fact!
When this note popped up in my email, I was so happy and excited, I interrupted everyone at the moon party— “Hey, listen to this!”— and read it aloud:
Great column, Alison, but I really loved this photos in this one!
Flowers and nature are so healing, and help me regain perspective. I'm so glad you have this connection!