Happiness by Moonlight

by Izzy Winterhart

I recently read an article on Discovery News that life on earth could very well have existed without a moon.  What?  No moon?  I can’t imagine life without that beautiful white orb sitting so stately up there in our sky.

As I get older, insomnia seems to have become an unwanted monster that visits more frequently than I’d like.  But, after years of these visits, I have to admit I've noticed that I seem to be more inspired in that state of insomnolence.  I have discovered that the wakefulness that consumes my world during those hours that most normal people sleep brings about some flow of creativity that washes through my mind like a raging river.  Words, vocabulary I didn’t know I possessed, lay at my feet, ready like little story soldiers waiting for their next assignment.  Visions, ideas, theories, thoughts, understandings, all captured during those few hours when my brain should be shut off.  Over these many unsettled nights I continue to tell myself to leave a journal by the bedside so I can capture all these insightful words and ideas.  But I have yet to do it.

What does this have to do with the moon?  Well, during those sleepless nights, trying so desperately not to wake my husband, I wander the house by the light of the moon.  I sit on the couch where moon beams stream from our front window and I catch them in my hands.  The moon is a welcome friend during those nights when my eyes won’t stay shut.  Sometimes I’ll just lay in bed and watch her journey through the night sky, quietly gliding through the tree tops.  Although those nights of restless sleep choke my days with bleary eyed haziness, I have to admit I’ve come to enjoy them.  I’ve given in and allowed it to be what it is.  My time with my creative self and the moon.  I’ve accepted this relationship, welcomed it in and now it makes me “happy”.

I’m now off to find that journal and put it by my bedside.  

Do any of find your inspirational happiness in unusual places?

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, 

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." 

~ Oscar Wilde