Five Years a Writer

My mood   One day last week, my mood was dark, irritable, sad. I couldn’t shake it. It sat on my shoulder like a cloud, feelings heavy enough to push me off kilter. That evening, despite my mood, I was obliged to attend my monthly online ‘writing for pleasure’ group because I host the  Zoom sessions  —  and I’m so glad I did, because the group’s presence on my screen and the writing that the session inspired quite shifted my mood, and I was reminded, once again, how true it is what my friend Karen said many years ago: “I can shift my mood by putting on lively music and dancing in the living room.” She might not have said the dancing part, but the music part she definitely said. For me, that evening last week, the music was the company of my fellow writers; the dancing was the writing that the session’s leader invited us to do. All day I had shunned company, avoided connection, tuned out by going online for nonsense. But that evening, the very thing I thought I hadn’t...