Mood
“Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
Every new year, I set new (sometimes reset old) intentions (not resolutions but bigger-picture) patterns & attitudes I need in order to align my life to my hopes for my life. And every new year I acquire new tools for measuring & tracking those intentions: calendars, planners, journals to chronicle & annotate my life. Marbles moved from one jar to another to represent pounds lost. Popsicle sticks inscribed with activity ideas to encourage family togetherness. Wall Charts of expectations and rewards related to sobriety, tidiness, or exercise.
New for 2021!
I am attempting to implement a mood tracker—a visible measure of how I am feeling each day to get a sense of trends in my mood & how they relate to other things going on in my life, schedule, & body. Herewith, I bought a pre-printed pixel chart that affords a hierarchical scale to code nine measures of mood on a large rectangle of 365 squares in which I can record, using a color code, each day’s mood. At the end of the year, I will have a lovely pointillist interpretation of 2021.
I spent gobs of time looking up words to describe the nuances between my feelings on a good day vs my feelings on a really good day. I explored words to describe a day that is ordinary—no lottery winnings, no coup attempts—and a day that might be a little more or less ordinary. Then, once I had decided that a serene day was a less good day than a purposeful day, I had to decide what colors represented serene and purposeful (and 7 other moods). Should I use colors commonly associated with those words or choose colors that reflect a scale of my preferences? Perhaps serene is blue to most people, but I am not a big fan of blue, so what if I made serene orange—would that be appropriate or confusing?
As I pored over my words, prioritized my colors, and pinched away the markers I used to make said colors, I knew, in no uncertain terms, I would never use it.
Even so, I am not quite willing to give up on the idea. Sitting with my 12 yr old son, on the evening of his 12th birthday, I attempted to get him to describe his feelings about the day.
Me: “Did you have a good birthday?”
The Boy: “Yes, it was fun!”
Me: “What was fun about it?”
The Boy: “I don’t know—it was my birthday!”
Then it occurred to me that perhaps abstractions like good or fun or serene weren’t really helpful. Perhaps something more concrete would provide clearer insight.
“On a scale of Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader with C-3PO being just OK (because, of course, he is), how was your birthday?” Me being me thought this rather clever. Him being him had to argue with my measures. “No, not Luke. The Mandolorian is best.”
While I am disappointed in his Star Wars frame, I do appreciate that he is willing to go along with the idea.
So, on a scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being worst and 7 being best , here is his scale (with my definitions):
1—Emperor Palpatine: an evil, lightning bolts-fired-from-fingers kind of day.
2—Kylo Ren: a pretty bad day that, with a lot of effort, kind of comes around.
3—Lando Calrissian: starts smarmy but tries to salvage itself. If you weren’t so caught up in calling the day bad, it could have been a Han.
4—C-3PO: a day that is just there—a constant; a little annoying & a little useful.
5—Han Solo: a day that is bold and dangerous; it shoots first & you go with it.
6—Obi-Wan Kenobi: a peaceful and informed day—it has been waiting for you
7—the Mandalorian: a day with baby Yoda’s stamp of approval must be something special
Since his birthday, we’ve had four Mando days.
* * *
My mood chart goes from hopeless to fulfilled, black to yellow in nine steps. Can I work in that abstraction? Will the words I use still make sense months from now? And what if I can’t find one of the markers I used on the day I need it—then will I just have to default to hopeless because the whole thing will fall apart, and I will drive myself to despair looking for the lost marker? Probably.
So, I decided to create my own metaphor chart to represent my moods, using images that I know and have already internalized. Not characters from Star Wars but scenes from my own life; images that tell stories of moments, images, & memories that contain high emotion.
On a scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being the worst and 7 being the best, here is my scale:
1—they walk away: a day that turns its back on you & will never turn around
2—a torn photograph in a shattered frame: a damaged day worthy of one last glance before it is tossed out
3—the day after my birthday: disappointing for the echo of what it is not
4—the white of a blank page: a day unmarred & as a result, not yours
5—the cusp of something fleeting: a day heartening for its temporary pain or pleasure
6—3pm Thursday: the full of a day pouring into evening; anticipating the weekend but holding just enough of the week
7—early morning sun billowing through white curtains: a day of absolute contentment; a place where I always want to be
My sense of direction is beyond terrible—if I say we are driving north, you can guarantee we are driving south. I don’t know my right from my left. I sometimes say future when I mean past.
I often have difficulty distinguishing between concrete and abstract. I intellectually understand the difference, but I’m often not sure if my images exist in the head or if they exist as a sensory experience in the world. I see writing, especially poetry, as a 3D object that, when complete & attained, takes up space in the world—the words merge with the page to become a physical thing with texture, aroma, rustle, and weight.
Mood is a function of mind. A day is a function of the cosmos. Time is somewhere in between.
Rather than having a deconstructed interpretation in colored blocks—a Le Grande Jatte viewed too close—at the end of 2021, perhaps, if I can keep with it, I will have a kind of villanelle or sestina or pantoum of 365 lines in 52 stanzas organized on 12 themes.
An abstract & concrete celebration of loss, expectation, & pleasure told through words, actions, and images. A poem. A year.
