What brings me before this screen...

Write what you know.  That's why I wrote that book, a good friend points out.  I know that I am unable to put her out of my mind, I know I made a lot of mistakes back then, and I know the thoughts of those mistakes come to me steadily, in timely ways, and around Christmastime.  Yes, it was my own lack of confidence;  she was right about that in a lot of ways.  And yet, I resist, because the conventional wisdom does not quite go round the whole picture.  What else was eating at me then...  some sort of stubborn Capricorn thing, and I do believe in the influence of the stars upon us, upon wine as well for that matter.

The fates.  People talk like there are actions, that it's not all to be looked at fatalistically, but I do not know those ways, but rather have an instinct to ride things out, and hopefully be sensitive enough when the moods of people and things change, or open.  It's very hard to be serious  Easier to make light of things, be a comedian, sing like a song and dance man, an entertainer, keeping it light.

What can you say when you would send a book, a written work, to such a person, such a situation.   A Christmas card full of one's own errors, of human conditions.  It comes as a solace when a therapist tells you that at 21 you're still a child, that only by the mid to late twenties does the brain come into mature form.  By that time I was already out working, the dreary sort of job that keeps you in motion, keeps your mind from your own problems and sadnesses with its demand for you to be in the present moment.  Else you'd be zombied out by the thoughts of all the good activities you missed and how even showing up to work you're not fixing anything, but still going down the same foolish path as if it were an illness you could not shake, a state of brain chemistry.

I do yoga now and meditate.  My patience and goodness are largely wasted, but in the blank form of hospitality.

This writing won't do it, it won't fix a thing.  But still, you have to have faith even in the smallest effort, if that's all you can get to, dreary as it may be.  An exercise to go through.   Keep at it, and there will be better days ahead.

And on a cold night there will be some spiritual book to take some interest and solace in, or a way to take good care of the self, through nutrition or otherwise, or perhaps some thought on the purpose of writing in one's own non-commercial way.

One of those little blurbs you find on Facebook, Capricorns put on a brave face.  Bold literary experiments gone awry.