There’s this tweet from writer Dan Sheehan making the rounds on every social media platform I’m on about the so-called “quarantine state of mind,” which he writes “is having 3 solid days where you feel pretty well adjusted, followed by a sudden, unexpected dip into what we call ‘the hell zone.’”
The math somehow perfectly matches up with my own shifting state(s) of mind these past few weeks. Monday is fine, Tuesday is a little better, but around Thursdays at 10 a.m., it’s like I’m slowly being nudged off of a cliff in the dead of winter with no parachute, no coat, nothing but the overcast sky above me and a frozen lake below. I say nudge and not push, because a push connotes a sense of surprise, and I am rarely surprised anymore. I expect it, anticipate it, even crave the downfall. With the downfall comes that tenacious desire to do the only thing that’s ever helped me climb out of the cold and the dark. The downfall gets me writing.
It’s not so much that I can’t write when I’m fine or even happy. I can, I do.
I subscribe to the overstated but lovely Kurt Vonnegut happiness perspective.
But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
—Kurt Vonnegut
On Tuesday, I wrote about the sounds I was hearing from my backyard. Birdsong and trains and whistling bugs. In that moment, all felt well. I knew I had to document it somehow. A sloppy list is all I could convince my hands to conjure up.
Lately, writing just seems to take more energy than I’m willing or able to expend on a fine or happy day. On those days—on my Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays—I feel the need to use my energy on, say, basking under the sun, responding to emails, making my bed, calling a friend. I know that when Thursday late morning comes around, I will be utterly exhausted and just thinking about those simple and mundane tasks will feel paralyzing. I will be unable to move or to pick up a call or even feed my body until I at least try to write, but it will take strength to move my pen. And whether I can actually muster the courage is a great gamble. On some of my emptier days, I will forget about food, both mine and my dogs’.
This morning (a Thursday), I woke around 5:30 a.m. after finally shutting my eyes just three hours earlier. Between then and now—it’s 10:46 a.m. as I’m typing this—I was able to scratch off about 30% of my day’s must-dos. A significant achievement. More than I’d accomplished in at least four days.
But as soon as it hit 10 a.m., my body and mind just shut down. My spine injury flared, and when I accidentally dropped my phone on the floor, it took me at least 7 minutes just to pick it up. The nerves tend to seethe when I’m mentally unwell.
I’ve started scheduling my therapy appointments for Thursdays or Fridays to try and cope, to get myself back into a rhythm. I’m trying to commit to cooking meals I’ve never cooked, just to soak up something new, something nourishing.
I don’t know. Every day feels like waking up in a nightmare, a science fiction novel with no happy ending. I dream of more consistent joy and more movement in my dense fingers. For now, there’s this.
—fiza
You pretty much described my days too.