To cure what ails

On Saturday I was in a bad mood, and worse, I didn't even have a good reason for it. I feel perfectly justified wallowing in a foul temper if something awful has actually happened, various disorders can make any given day a horror, and many of us get ambushed by our hormones, overactive little menaces that they are. I considered my life and checked that I'd taken my meds and counted the days of the lunar cycle, and decided that I was just having a case of the grumps.

I also had a mild headache and a little sleep deprivation to deal with, so I gave myself a shake, took a couple of ibuprofen, and put myself to bed for a restorative nap. My non-fiction audio listening at the moment is Tharik Hussain's Muslim Europe, an interesting and informative exploration of an aspect of European history that is often ignored. Tharik was exploring the Alhambra in Granada. I listened as he recounted a conversation, and fell asleep.

When I woke 90 minutes later, my headache was gone, and I was inclined to think the world might not be completely horrifying. To make certain of it, I lit my favourite candle, put on some classic jazz songs, and read A Big Storm Knocked It Over, Laurie Colwin's last, best book, for maybe the fifth or sixth time.

I like Laurie Colwin's work very much. She does not deny that terrible things happen, that people are often marked and warped by forces they cannot control, but she also thinks they can basically be thoughtful and good to each other if they try.

And she writes love really well, especially the part where people think that if they love someone, they ought to really know them. But you can't. There are unnavigable spaces within all of us that no loved one can truly traverse, because they weren't there, or if they were they didn't come out the same way you did. Laurie Colwin says, you will never be able to completely read someone else's map of their soul. And then she says, but that's all right. Roast a chicken and love them anyway.

A candle, Ella Fitzgerald, and Laurie Colwin; that's my prescription for a foul mood, and it absolutely worked. I made a good dinner and most of a dress, and felt very noble for addressing my suffering so adroitly.

My Second Chance Charms Kickstarter launches tomorrow! I'll send another newsletter then to tell you all about it (in an interesting and entertaining way, I hope) but for now, goodbye. I hope the grumps are leaving you alone.

Love, Karen.

That Healey Girl is the weeklyish newsletter of Karen (or Kate) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river.