The clouds block the sky edge to edge tonight, but I can feel which moon is up there. I think I should have known it all along.

(Whenever I finally realize something, I think I should have known it all along, usually fumbling away a chance to act while standing thusly stunned.)

One subtle bit of wisdom I've picked up along the way delineates a view of scary things. My highest course of study tried to mold the way I'd think: about problems, about issues day-to-day.

I think I picked up this rule of thumb somewhere amid that coursework, but wherever it's from, it's golden and well proved. Pause to state it and explain:

When you have a problem, it's a problem.
When you have two problems...
it's a chance to make them solve each other.

I've found it a useful viewpoint, partially for the entertainment value, but also for how brilliant it looks when it leads to something that works. Got a problem you're thinking in circles about, that you can't figure out how to beat? Go looking for another problem that you can jam into its gears, maybe create a new situation, get yourself into a different box. If nothing else, any onlookers will be confused, which certainly beats contemptuous every time.

(I wish I could transcribe better for you here the best application of this philosophy I've ever heard... I was explaining this idea once to a dear friend who underrates her own skills. The one who would go pouty when with people playing genius, despite the fact that she could play along. It was on a day we'd spoken of the pissoffs on our plates, and I was trying to lay out how I saw mine. I told her of this strategy; she got it right away. She lit up like the star she was, said plainly as I spoke: "So I should have [my temporarily stabby best friend] beat up [my permanently foolish ex-boyfriend]?" Exactly, precious fishie: grade A+. I wish I could convey how well that fit.)

It's not precisely secret I've got stuff going on right now I don't really know how to take care of. No matter how I turn the kaleidoscope, I can't get enough light to make it shine, and while the patterns are sometimes charming, I'm not making it fall the way I want. I've been in an evil box, and not the kind with hope at the bottom, so I've simply thrown my hands up and sat waiting for the crash. Leaning against the restraints, pretending a free fall was just a roller coaster.

However...

Some information reaches me that bears upon big issues, a subtle shift in how they are defined. I can nudge them to collision course, I can see the pool shot now: just a gentle double bank to make them kiss.

I feel I have to try it, though it means a large diversion. There will be things I hold dear that I give up.

I won't be exactly me anymore, if I make the shot or not, and that's just the sort of thing from which I shy. The rhythms of it elude me somewhat: flamenco staccato, long flowing glides, in pairs to match the pauses in the traffic.

But I feel the moon that's up there, know the season that I'm in. Sometimes opportunity reclines in front of you, eyes wide. Lips parted in the beginnings of a smile made just for you.

Jump on that, I say. Don't hold back as if it could become more ripe.

It's not really time to harvest: let the hunter's moon have sway.

So it is written - so shall it be.

(I'll be back to let you know how it all turned out. It's really not all that dramatic, I just love to sound as if it is, and hey, my blog, right?)