On Harvest Moons and writing

My eldest and I gasped simultaneously.

Did you see that Mommy??

I did, sweetheart.  It's pretty amazing, isn't it?

A huge harvest moon had just begun its ascent, and hung right above the horizon.  Luminous in the dusky blue of a September evening.

I almost pulled the swagger wagon over to the side of the road, just to look.  In and out of the trees it seemed to bob and weave - or maybe it was me bobbing and weaving.  And then, for a long stretch on I95 I had an uninterrupted view.

I watched that moon from the corner of my eye as I drove.



Its glow seemed so self contained.  The huge circle hung in the sky, not gold not yellow not orange.  Just....the color of warm light itself.  The moon seemed to have no compulsion to cast shadows, to spotlight anyone or anything.  It seemed content to glow within itself, guarding a secret knowledge of the autumn to come, the long winter beyond it and a spring that will surely come. 

I want to live like that harvest moon, I found myself thinking.  I want the inner glow, the self possession that doesn't include bright flashy sunbeams cast on those around me, but rather inspires them to glow themselves. 

But.  But. I know that that spark within me, the origin of the glow is the writing.  And honestly, that light has been dim for such a long time.   Every time I sit down to write anything, I start, then sigh, and stare at a blank screen.  I hit delete-delete-delete-delete and keep that moon from rising on the horizon with its radiance and indescribable color.

Just write.  Its a message I have muttered to myself so often in the past six months.  Just write.  And yet the darkness feels unshakeable - a total eclipse, if you will.  It doesn't mean the moon has gone away - it simply means it is obliterated temporarily by the brilliance of others in its orbit - by the roles of mother wife daughter teacher.

So here it is.  I'm just writing.  Inspired, as with so many other years, by the reflections of autumn, by the wisdom gleaned in gathering days, by those around me who urge me  to Just Write.

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Heather at the Extraordinary Ordinary - a blogger who makes me laugh like few others, and then choke up with tears with her very next post - yesterday put a challenge out there.  Can you do it? she asked.  Can you let go of your inner critic, of your daily routine just for a moment, and Just Write?

I am so grateful to have someone ask that simple question, the night I talked with the harvest moon.