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A simple day
Sometimes life is this simple–watering the plants, painting a gate and then the threshold of the front door, seeing things (seemingly) fall apart then come back together (all apparently of their own accord). Within less than 24 hours. With the bad mood that I tell other people I’m in, teasing myself out of it. With the underlying pleasure of taking things as they come rather than taking things to task.
Is the bad mood in response to things that appear to fall apart and then reform or just in conjunction for no particular reason? Moods are so susceptible to how we think about what happens around/to/through us. My perception of you is one of a woman with a very even temper bejeweled by frequent moments of joy. It may be illogical on my part, but your allusion to a bad mood surprises me. I love that you tease yourself out of it–what a great approach!
I thank you, Lara, for your lovely view of me.
“Bad mood” is simply an easy phrase for describing what I sometimes call a twit–a twitter of funk, sullenness, or agitation. Twitters are light, and it’s easy to tease myself when I recognize that . . . twit it is.
Your first speculation about the reason for the bad mood characterizes the passing state of uncomfortable mind that I wrote about. You say that moods are susceptible to our thinking. Indeed, our minds create the moods, and someone can “think” herself further and further into a mood, even into moodiness itself. That kind of “thinking” can be pretty obsessive and speculative, whether it’s an over-elated good mood (headed for a crash) or a (possibly) misery-increasing bad mood. Important–to catch ourselves in the midst of the APPEARANCE of things falling apart.
How do we stop ourselves from getting mired in the muck of our days? How do we remain free from the burden of it all. There’s something about your post that reminds me of the Quakers’ simplified view of life–just being alive is enough and we benefit from slowing down to take in all the details (not an exact recounting of their theology, but an attitude of inverse bitterness and a celebration).
Yes, the slowing down that you mention is essential–some repose!! In which the usual meanings and materializations of rest and relaxation, which readily entail a tuning out that consists of not paying attention, shift, so that being in a quiet, if not silent, state brings about the peacefulness of close and fluid observation.