Dealing with a Bleak House of a Mood

This has been the kind of morning that is a challenge to my normal, sunny mood.  It's the kind of morning where I look at all the elements of the house that I found enchanting and feel growly.

For example, we have beautiful palm trees.  Until we moved to a house with beautiful palm trees, I had no idea of how often they dropped their fronds.  And although palm fronds look lightweight, they're not.

This morning, I drove too close to a brush pile of them, and I drug one across the street as I was headed to an easier parking space.  I don't think I've ruined my car.

Of course, my car is old (a 2001 Corolla) and not in the best shape to begin with, so how will I be sure?  The tires are still inflated and it moves, so I'm calling it fine.

Yes, it's been that kind of morning, where I look at what I thought would be the enchanting parts of owning a historic home, like the uneven floors, and wonder what we've done to ourselves.

It's been the kind of morning where I wonder if I'll ever get anything substantial written in this study.  I think of what I used to do and feel a deep sorrow.

Of course, when I'm sinking into that black hole, I don't think about my daily blogging, my set of linked stories that are coming together, the memoir that I will shape into something meaningful.  I think of the years when I wrote a novel or two.  I think of all the poems I once wrote.  I think of how many packets of submissions I'd have already mailed by this time back in September of 1999.

I thought about not writing about any of this, about my weepy mood, my black snarliness, my worry that we're hemorrhaging money, my fears that are repressed so deeply that I'm unsure of what they actually are.  But I want this blog to be a record of my life, in as much as I can be open and public.

More important, I want to create an accurate record of what it means to live a creative life.  I find that I like to blog about the progress that I've made on projects, but I'm less likely to blog about the frustrating times.  I don't want other creative people to read my blog and say, "She accomplishes so much and stays so happy--what's wrong with me?"

As always, my frustrations melt away if I can just find some time to write or be creative in other ways.  in fact, this morning I thought about making a coffee cake, but decided to write this blog post instead--it's fewer calories and more permanent.

And the writing about my black/sad mood has helped it dissipate a bit.