This is the story about the giant moon sticker I’ve been meaning to tell you guys. But the universe knew I had to wait until today to tell it. You’ll see why.
Alethea’s Magic Shop: https://www.amazon.com/shop/aletheakontis
Giant glow-in-the-dark moon sticker: https://amzn.to/3OSq2aN
I didn’t put up the giant glow-in-the-dark full moon sticker the day that I received it. My soul wasn’t prepared to tackle a project that daunting. Plus, the 6 separate sticker sheets it came in were rolled up TIGHT. So all I did that first day was open the package, unroll all the sticker sheets, lay them flat on the porch table, and weigh them down with a few statues.
After a day or so, previously rolled sticker sheets usually stay flat. But Deborah Blake was coming to visit, so I moved the sticker sheets to the floor of my bedroom. And there they stayed for at least a week.
Now, I had the perfect spot in mind for this giant moon: the master bathroom. This bathroom lies beyond a curtained doorway and is rather unique in design—it’s long and skinny and wraps around the Master Bedroom in five parts: the shower stall, the second sink, the garden tub, the main sink, and the toilet “room.”
It’s a tiny room. It does have a door, but I never close it – if I use it when guests are over I just close the door to my bedroom. The toilet is like, across the bedroom, through the curtain, and around the corner anyway. It takes newcomers a minute to find it. There’s only enough floor space for a toilet and a small stand on which I keep my extra toilet paper and sundries. That’s it.
But the one thing this tiny room does have is WALL SPACE. And it just so happens that the main wall is positioned in such a way that it gets several hours of full morning sun, especially in the summer. As glow-in-the-dark stickers do need light to charge (preferably the bright sun) if they’re going to glow all night, I thought this would be the perfect place to put a giant moon.
It would be goofy, yeah, but fun! I’ve always loved the sky. And if I didn’t love the sticker, I could just take it down after I reviewed it and find one of those giant wall stickers that’s a window looking out over a sunset sea or autumn woods or something.
So one weekday morning after mediation with Tempest, I tackled the job of installing the Giant Sticker.
And that night…well, let me just post my review here…
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I have always loved space and the night sky, so I initially got this giant moon sticker as a challenge. How tough would it be to put together, really? The answer: actually not hard at all. You install it top to bottom, left to right. Pieces 3, 6, and 8 will give you the most trouble. The pattern on the moon is diffuse, which is happily forgiving—you also need to forgive yourself. Some parts will not line up perfectly or have small gaps – don’t worry. You won’t notice them, even in the dark. Concentrate on keeping the outline smooth – especially when it comes to the last two pieces
The most important part of this sticker is PLACEMENT. Make sure you have
1) a big enough space on the wall that
2) gets direct sunlight for at least a few hours a day to recharge the glow-in-the-darkness.
I got the yellow-green moon (because the moon is made of green cheese, right?) – it starts glowing even at twilight. It is brightest right after dark, but maintains a lovely, soft glow throughout the night. I checked it right before I went to bed, then again at 3am and 5am. The moon was still glowing.
AND I SMILED EVERY TIME. Because I had apparently forgotten during this whole process that my favorite movie is Joe vs the Volcano, and that scene where Tom Hanks is lost at sea and humbled by the giant moon rising on the horizon…now I relive that moment every night, multiple times a night, and it makes me so happy I could almost cry.
We need all the joy we can get in these troubled times, and if a giant glow-in-the-dark moon has the ability you smile, then you deserve this gift to yourself.
(And consider keeping some of the excess glow-in-the-dark sticker bits instead of throwing them straight in the garbage – I plan on cutting a few stars out of it. It’s quality sticker material! And sticks well.) A great value.
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I wasn’t actually kidding about the part where it makes me smile like a little kid every night. I wake up in the dark, half asleep, shuffle over to the bathroom, pull back the curtain, and see the giant full moon glowing low on the horizon. It hasn’t stopped being positively magical. I hope it never does.
In honor of this sticker and subsequent revelation, last night I pulled Joe vs. the Volcano off my DVD shelf and watched it again
It really is my favorite movie of all time, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. I know I watched it about a decade ago, not long after I’d moved in (and we’d renovated this poor battered house enough to make it livable) because I wrote a quote from it down on a sticky note and taped it to my bathroom mirror. It’s still there.
“There are certain times in your life when you’re not supposed to have anyone, you know? Certain doors you’ve got to go through alone.”
Joe said this in response to limousine driver Marshall (Ossie Davis), who asked Joe if he had anybody in his life who could stay with him. (Ossie Davis still remains my favorite part of this entire film.) As a serial monogamist who hadn’t been legitimately by herself for a while, this was a particularly poignant line for me to remember. I didn’t realize it would end up defining an entire era of my life.
I’m still alone, and happy to be so. And that sticky note is still on my mirror.
Joe’s story is about the journey; the film itself is framed in a way that invites us to imagine our own grueling, tumultuous lives as a fairy tale. Which I do. Maybe I always have.
“How old was I when this movie came out?” I wondered, so I looked it up. Joe vs. the Volcano was released in 1990, so I would have been 14.
The exact date?
March 9, 1990.
I got goosebumps and flipped back to my phone’s home screen, just to be sure.
Happy 36th anniversary, Joe Banks.
Thank you for sticking with me all this time.
🌕
