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Isabella has been away in Italy and I wake up gloomy. I wonder whether I will still be in “a mood” when she returns, or whether it will dissipate and the heaviness of the world—heaviness will lighten.
I wonder what moods are. Are we always in some mood or another, never neutral, but slightly bent towards cheerfulness or irritation? In Old English, mōd referred broadly to inner disposition: heart, spirit, frame of mind, including courage, pride, and sometimes wrath.
How much agency do we have when it comes to our moods? Can we switch in and out of them as we wish, or are they a governing force over which we have no control?
Was my mood, which was dark in Isabella’s absence, a kind of punishment of her through my own suffering? Perhaps I was enacting, on my own self, my frustration with her being away, as if sulking might register on her body in Italy. Are we merely a collection of moods or mental states, or is there some essential self that we can return to?
We go to comedy shows and listen to music to change our state of mind. There are certain songs, or pieces of music, that we return to, that we know will change our moods.
