This Is How You Find the Moon

“Barn’s burnt down — now I can see the moon.” – Mizuta Masahide

This is how you find the moon:

Your life is burning down. Not literally, of course. No sirens, no fire hoses. This is the kind of fire that leaves no ash but takes everything with it. It starts slow, like when you realize you haven’t smiled for real in weeks. You keep telling yourself it’s just stress, just work, just life. But then you blink, and everything’s on fire. The job, the friends, the relationship—it’s like the barn caught fire, and you never even smelt the smoke.

You try to keep it together. You go to the same coffee shop, order the same drink, chat with the same barista who always gets your name wrong, but it’s all just autopilot. There’s no substance, just a lot of “how are yous” and “I’m fines” exchanged with people who couldn’t care less either way.

You think maybe it’s just a phase, that you’ll snap out of it. But then it gets worse. You catch yourself staring at your phone, hoping for a message that never comes, a call that doesn’t happen. The silence is deafening, like someone’s hit mute on your life, and you can’t seem to find the remote.

But that’s the thing about fire—it’s indiscriminate. It doesn’t care about your plans, your dreams, your carefully crafted schedule. It just burns. You’re left with ash and smoke and the feeling that nothing will ever be the same again.

Then, through the haze, something glimmers. It’s faint at first, like a half-remembered dream. But the more you let go of what was, the clearer it becomes. It’s the moon, hanging there quietly, as if it’s been waiting for you to notice it all along.

You take a step back from the wreckage and realize there’s space now. Space to breathe, to feel the air on your skin, to remember that there’s a world beyond the smoke. It’s not that everything suddenly makes sense—it doesn’t. But there’s something about the moon that feels like a promise. Like it’s saying, “This isn’t the end. It’s just a change.”

You start to notice other things, too. The way the light filters through the trees, the way the night feels cool and soft against your skin. It’s almost peaceful. You realize you can find beauty in this new emptiness, that maybe you needed the barns to burn down to see what was beyond them.

The moon’s always been there, waiting for you to look up. It doesn’t need you to have all the answers; it just needs you to see it, to know that even in the darkest times, there’s light somewhere. You start to believe it, little by little. The moon’s steady, unchanging, a quiet reminder that even when everything else is lost, there’s always something to guide you.

This is how you find the moon:

You let the barns burn down. You watch the smoke clear. And in that empty space, you find a new way to see the world. You find the moon, and suddenly, it’s enough. At least for now.


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