I’m at an interesting crossroads with my writing, as may be evident in my lack of output in recent months. At first I was burned out from having written the book. But I finished the manuscript about a year and a half ago, so I think that excuse is probably getting a little worn out. Then I thought, well, maybe it’s the forms that are stale; I’ve been writing about the New and Full Moons, and writing my blog, for many years now, and maybe I’ve just run out of things to say about the Moon and my cats.
But it’s not exactly that, either. Occasionally I looked back at some of the old pieces I’ve written – usually with an eye to rerunning them in my regular slot at MoonCircles when I can’t come up with anything new – and mostly I’m sort of immodestly dazzled by them. They seem so insightful, so well-crafted – like something that sprang fully-formed from someone else, and not painfully midwifed by me at all. But it’s getting harder and harder to relate to the woman who wrote them. She was so introspective… and, between the lines, so unhappy. It all made for good writing, but not a terribly enjoyable life.
I’m happier now, I think, than I’ve been for many, many years. I’m more sociable too – that progressed Moon in Aquarius, I suppose. And I find that I don’t really know how to write about happiness, about contentment. It’s something I’ve rarely allowed myself, going back to that terrible day in 1970 when my father died and the rug of my life was pulled out from underneath my happy little feet. The legacy of that event is that I’ve always had a hard time trusting and enjoying the good times in life; they feel transitory, a fleeting aberration from the self-absorbed gloominess that seems to have become my default setting. No one likes to feel like a fool – and when my father was killed, I felt like a fool for having believed life was a certain way, for harboring certain happy expectations about the way the world worked.
Always a shy but remarkably sunny child, I came, overnight, to identify with Saturn: “to do is to be.” By doing, and performing – and most importantly, by never letting myself get my hopes up – I could gain some measure of control over my circumstances.
It’s taken a very, very long time to get past that… but lately, I feel it’s beginning to happen. Call it transiting Jupiter getting ready to cross my natal Saturn. Call it the silver lining to the black cloud of middle age. Whatever it is, I’m content right now. And as a writer, I’m not exactly sure what to do with that. I have found neither the words to describe it, nor the faith that my general sense of well-being is an interesting topic of conversation.
I sort of long for the unexamined life – at least until my progressed Moon moves into Pisces.
Are you good at being happy? And are you just as creative when you’re happy as when you’re miserable?
