The Happiness of Looking Up at the Full Moon

On my way home from work, I suddenly felt as if someone were watching me, and I stopped in my tracks.
When I looked up, the full moon was peeking at me from between the clouds. Compared to the sun, which casts a piercing, glaring light during the day, the moonlight is infinitely soft. It illuminates the city, still holding the day's heat, not with coldness, but with a quiet warmth. I stopped walking, captivated by that comfort.
As I gazed at the moon for a while, it was strange how the familiar patterns began to look like a rabbit pounding mochi. I don't remember clearly if it was my mother or my grandmother, but I recall watching this rabbit pounding mochi alongside someone when I was a child. And that person told me, "The moon is always looking at the earth with the same expression." Looking back, I think that was a rather poetic and tasteful thing to say, but I was too much of a child to understand such sentiment. I only vaguely remember pestering them with questions like, "Well, why does it always have the same face?"
If I had a child of my own, how would I answer such a question?
It is easy to explain scientifically that the moon's rotation and revolution periods are the same. But I don't think my child would be satisfied with just that kind of explanation. Even if I made a model and showed them the moon spinning, how would I explain the underlying cause—tidal locking (where the gravitational pull between the moon and Earth synchronizes their rotation and revolution periods)?
Speaking of tidal forces, the Earth's axis is stabilized by their influence, and the ebb and flow of the tides circulate the seawater. There is even a theory that life was born thanks to this. In a sense, you could say we were born because the moon exists. Perhaps the sense of healing we feel from the moonlight is something engraved in our genes, a mysterious connection between the moon's existence and the birth of life. It might be nice to tell my children such stories. I smiled bitterly at myself for drifting into such daydreams.
By the way, in the distant past when the moon was born, it orbited much closer and faster, showing the Earth various expressions. In Shin Iyohara's novel "Three Kilometers to the Moon," there is a passage that compares this to the relationship between a parent and child.
"The baby moon is right there next to the Earth, isn't it? When it's young, it innocently spins around, showing all sorts of faces. But as time goes by, it gradually moves away from the Earth, stops spinning as much, and eventually comes to have a face it doesn't show the Earth. A side it doesn't show its parents, perhaps. Like the far side of the moon." It is no wonder he is a Naoki Prize-winning author. I remember being impressed by the brilliance of that metaphor.
Thinking back, I can relate to that myself. When I was young, I wouldn't leave my mother's side. But as I grew older, I let my frustration build because she didn't understand me, and eventually, I gave up on being "understood" and started to distance myself. But my mother saw right through all of that and continued to pour her unchanging love upon me. It took me a very long time to realize that love.
With that in mind, a few days after the full moon, I visited my parents' home for the first time in a while, carrying a whole watermelon, my mother's favorite. She looked a little thinner again, but she still welcomed me with a smile. She didn't even eat half of the bento I bought, but she polished off three slices of watermelon, which left me both surprised and relieved. The strength to eat is the strength to live. I hope my mother eats well and gets through the long, hot summer ahead.