Tag Archives: Moon

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Tempelhofer Feld, March 16 2022

Another afternoon wandering Tempelhofer Feld with my camera. After yesterday’s messing around, I did some reading the fucking manual to remind myself how to use an expensive camera and lens. And I learned the 16-80mm F4 lens can also do passable macro at the zoomed end. Which obviously I like, especially if I ever go back to a museum and shoot art.

First stop, the skate park, for some boyz and lads doing ollies and kickflips. And took probably the photo of the day: someone doing a 360. Bit of a walk, bit of a sitdown to work out what buttons I’d pushed and why camera was being weird (accidentally nudged the dial to HDR), shot some cyclists in full aero TT mode. More walking and almost stomped on spring flowers being highly ostentatious, which is where I tested out exactly how macro can I go? Actually very, and the detail is mad.

More walking and got told to smile by some gormless wanker. Joke’s on you, dickhead, I already was.

More walking and these Skylarks were getting well rowdy. And fully not afraid of people, so I just stood there while one came right up scratching for a feed. Photo wasn’t so good though, but once again, yay zoom. And then took a photo of the almost full moon, which I looked at when I got home, and insane detail zooming in in the raw image, the mare are clearly visible, as are the bright craters and rays of Tycho, Copernicus, Kepler, and even Aristarchus. That’s hand-held auto-focus, in daylight with a heap of haze and high cloud, and the moon about 25° above the horizon.

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Maghrib

The full moon marks halfway for Ramadan. Two weeks down, two to go.

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Half-Way Iftar With Accompanying Reading

Yes, I ate all that. In retrospect, slightly heavy on the greens.

Our Women on the Ground would likely be my Book of the Year if I was still doing that.

Ramadan’s been frankly brutal this year. I do it because I want to and I enjoy being reminded of part of my family and history I know almost nothing about, but with the pandemic and all the accompanying stress (thanks white supremacists in all your forms) I just wanna sleep through the next two weeks.

Sometimes trans femme queer immigrant multiethnic neurodiverse self-love is a real hard one to do alone.

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Spring Moon Again Again 🌙

Last year it was walking Sonnenallee the evening before that made me realise I’d have to, as always, at least show up for the first day. Last year it was Eid getting pounded in a rain storm, later hanging with Vass, and a couple of days after that flying to Marbella for a very expensive not-holiday. This year. The will I won’t I conversation still happened, though it seems less believable this time around. It’s not the middle of summer for a start, though the days are still long. It’s still, “Just do the first day, at least that. Just that for your babaanne, your granny, your karani, your tūpuna wahine. Just do this one thing as best you can.” Every year, trying to make sense of missing history and if nothing else, Ramadan is, in the words of my stanch bro Onyx, a big offering to all that. Here’s the birds in the courtyard park out back of my place going fully pre-dawn hectic at 5am. Ramadan Mubarak fam, and Ramadan Kareem especially to my trans and non-binary and queer and bi sisters and siblings.

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Eid

A month ago on a Sunday evening I was walking along Sonnenallee with a friend when we were met by a pavement-wide smiling and laughing throng of girls and women in their finest hijabs, one of whom held up a tray full of sweets to me, and me in my ever-so-not-slow-at-all-ness — I could see my brain ticking over into a thought even — went, “O!” and managed a “Ramadan mubarek” while taking one (I’ve told this before). And feeling a little seen by the universe, ’cos that evening I wasn’t really planning on the coming month. And here we are, at the other end.

I rode home yesterday evening after hanging out with Isabelle and got caught in that impressive, drenching storm pushing the cool change across Berlin, like swimming, so much water, like wudu; it kinda felt fitting for the end of the month, even though I still expected another day. And around midnight, I read the new moon had been sighted and played the game of “Are we all doing it on the same day, then?” (no, we’re not, but Germany and Turkey are). So, Eid Mubarek and Ramazan Bayramınız mübarek olsun and schönes Zuckerfest especially to my trans and non-binary and queer and bi sisters and siblings. And to my babaanne, who I never knew but I know we’re connected. And to that girl who gave me that sweet.

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Spring Moon Again

I was walking in dusk along Sonnenallee, with someone passing through Berlin, much of the street quieter than usual, partly a Sunday evening, partly anticipation. A massive group of girls and women fill the footpath coming towards us, like a school outing, but the wrong day. Bright, colourful clothes and hijabs, all smiles, and one of the girls holds a basket up to us, full of sweets. I know what the day is, and it still takes me a moment to put things together. Oh yeah, “Ramadan Mubarak,” I say, and take a sweet. And they’re all saying it.

Here we are again, again, again. Every year, the same. Every year, “Just do the first day, do it for your babaanne,” and “Just do it as best you can, even if that’s bid‘ah.” Every year, those same conversations with myself, and new ones, like, “But there’s so much going on right now for me, and so much coming up …” But just this one day, eh? For all the reasons why.

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Iftar Banana Cake

My flatmate is the best flatmate. (Was fully delicious. I scoffed it in bed while hooning the Regenbogen Autobahn. And followed it with a block of chocolate. Also was the full moon. Oh! And taken with my new, sci-fi iPhone SE. First images even.)