...from the other side of the mauves.
I'm not sure if it's the heat wave we've had in the city recently or some distant planet slipping into retrograde, but for the last few days I've felt like I've been moving through life with the parking brake on—and I don't even have a car.
In his novel Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin calls this feeling "the mauves"—something "vaguer than the blues but just as debilitating." It's not quite sadness, and it's not quite burnout. It's more of a heaviness, a Gaussian blur on everything, turning a life I genuinely love into a slog.
Yesterday morning, I went to play pickleball with my usual goofy Tuesday group, something that's almost always a high point in my week. But a few games in, it felt like someone had poured cement into my sneakers. My paddle was heavy, I was missing easy shots, and I just didn't have it in me to care.
Instead of trying to muscle through, I waved a friendly surrender, dragged myself home, and gave up on being a productive human for the rest of the afternoon. I took a quick shower, grabbed a can of sparkling water from the fridge, curled up on the sofa with Ellie wedged against my leg, and spent a few quiet hours doing next to nothing: a couple chapters of a book, two giggly FaceTime calls with friends, and just generally checking out. It helped.
I slept hard last night and woke up this morning feeling like myself again—finally. Though honestly...what the heck was that? Why was that?
Do you ever get "the mauves"? If so, what's your gentle cure?