What is this mood you speak of? We are writers. We do not have moods; we are beyond all moodiness! While still maintaining our black-clad beatnik unsmiling countenances, which are definitely not indicators of mood. (Me, to myself)

I’m still not much of a workingwoman, writing-wise. My writing dailiness during this past week has hovered on the edge of “oh hell no,” though I have surprised myself and persevered.

I am absolutely having a week-long unwelcome mood. I would like to say that the skies have maintained a filtered grey light, that the humidity presses down like a weight, that my greyness is merely a reflection of the weather. But none of that’s empirically accurate, except perhaps the humidity. Mine is an internal grey, a fog-character from a mystery set in London, fog made of both wisps and impenetrable soup.

Like weather, it will change in time–I’ve scrutinized it, and it doesn’t have depression-hooks in it. Nor can I find hooks in my thinking or feeling that might snag this mood when it starts to move on. Maybe it’s someone else’s, and I’ve picked it up by mistake? But I can’t think of whose it would be.

In the meantime, the rest of each day’s actions unspool neatly. In fact, I prefer unspooling them, since they are uncomplicated, and cross themselves off lists quite neatly. They are satisfied with a routine pleasant demeanor, the one I keep with my coats, and their simple cheer is cheering. 

In the meantime, I dream I am one grain of sand on the shores of a sea with the tide coming in. And I quote a Psalm to myself while I sleep.

Each day I as steer my brain around to “what shall I write today?” I’m back enfolded in grey. I’ll slide between fog and cheery little tasks until I’m nearly out of time to write in.

I have never been able to decide, as I switch between cheery task completion and foggy non-writing, whether I’m maintaining two separate layers of living, or I forget each one when I’m in the other. I’m pretty sure it’s the former.

   

Nevertheless, I’ve had enough fun for one evening. Having participated in multiple conversations with young adults that slide towards “fix my misery; no, I will not let go of my misery,” I suspect even my own motives.

I’ll do nearly anything if it counts as writing.