Moonstruck

Night before last, that would have been the day following the new moon, I was awake at 2 a.m. with the feeling that I'd stuck my finger in the electrical socket. The racing mind, not the awfulizing one, rather the one so filled with ideas they can hardly be written fast enough, if one wants to be able to decipher them later.

Interior movies, or stills, of future projects...some using computer and scanner, some requiring fabric, paint and glaze, new interpretations of previous methods and entirely unknown terrain...were demanding that I pay attention and take notes. That aspect of self which grows impatient at dawdling must have been biting on a stick to keep from screaming as I looked through - and tested - my fine-line pens to find, you know, the right one. I had started a new, small journal of thoughts and ideas after the holidays and I wanted to record these moon-lit pieces of what I hoped would be brilliance by the light of day in a style that matched what was already on the pages. Consistency has value.

For years, anyway a decade and a half, I have been leaving myself messages about future undertakings, either stories or art, and I find them when I search through spiral-bound notebooks looking for something else. They were not written in the wee hours but were usually the product of intention, of trying to come up with whatever might be the new thing. Some are enduringly valid and I can surprise myself, mostly because there they continue to reside, waiting to become something wider than a notion. The suggestions that chose to visit at a not altogether welcome time, telemarketers and political fund-raisers who always phone during dinner may be related though decidedly odious, were different. They came close to assuming form, could, perhaps, have glued themselves to the pages (that would have been great, like snapshots of the finished product) and were zinging with energy.

Two of the pages in the new journal already mentioned "increase," a word that can partner with so many of our wants and wishes. The snappy wake-up call way before dawn and the directions in which it sent me could only be listed under that heading. We have times, at least I do, when inspirations couldn't be dislodged with tweezers and an X-acto. And then, as though delivered by Harry Potter's owl, good and viable stuff is dropped on the table in front of me. I really don't understand what makes the difference, only that the opening of doors allows a thin, wintry illumination to reach dusty corners from which misplaced excitement may be retrieved. Thank you. I will do my best to give it life.