One Cure for the Blues

When Funky arrives at my door, for no particular reason, I try to stop her in her muddy tracks. Usually, she doesn't make it inside, or--finding me inhospitable--disappears with just a whiff of the blues, not a lingering presence.

But sometimes, like these last few days, she means to stay a while.  I can tell because, on Day One, she dumps the contents of her lumpy bags all over my bed--things to worry about, resent, fear, or obsess over.

By Day Two, I'm foggy-brained and lethargic.

By Day Three, if I had the energy to sing, I'd be singing, "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, going to the garden to eat worms..."

Experts tell us that there are many ways to banish the blues--including pharmaceuticals, exercise, hydration,  vegetable juices, various therapies, funny movies, or conversations.  But if she sneaks in under cover of darkness, my psychic doors unlocked, she digs in her heels. While waiting for and hoping for her quick departure, I put up the Napping sign and go to Netflix, losing myself in other people's stories.

This week I watched all 22 episodes of Madame Secretary, a series about a brilliant 46-year-old Secretary of State who confers daily with foreign dignitaries, averts wars, brings down rogue operatives, and un-rufflles big fat feathers all over the globe.  Her maverick ideas always work out for the good of the country.

I've enjoyed the plots, the interactions among the characters, and the intrigue. But most of all, I've enjoyed listening to scripted dialogue, sharp and snappy--a continent away from the outpourings of  my own muddled brain.

Nobody in real life talks like these people!  All the characters--including the teenaged children--are articulate and lightning fast with retorts.  They don't mull over slights, they pluck them out by their roots in a nanosecond, with humor and good will. Their conversations are peppered with literary allusions and quips that (in real life) would take several drafts to come up with.

At the end of Madame Secretary's long days, she returns home to her unerringly faithful and supportive husband and banters brilliantly with her three kids.  Even when her oldest daughter turns a cold shoulder and stops speaking to her ex-CIA-mother, Bess doesn't obsess. She doesn't call her best friends and seek counsel.  (Actually, with her top-secret clearance, she doesn't have that kind of best friends....)

Instead, she goes to bed with her perfect husband and they talk and frolic like honeymooners  until the inevitable middle-of-the-night call summoning Bess to the Situation Room.

Henry, the Perfect Husband, could only have been created by a woman--as indeed he was.  And the director must have counseled him to look at Bess with adoration every second of every scene.

If anyone transgresses, the apologies are quick, sincere, and balanced.  "I owe you an apology," she says--taking full credit for her misdeed.

"Oh no, it was my fault," he says--followed by her demurring, "No, no, I was wrong...." and so on.

Here's where being a writer really comes in handy.  If you're slow or halting or lacking in confidence, you can write up an alter-ego who's quick, definitive, and powerful.  If you've never found the perfect man, well, you can just make him right up.

So nobody believes he's real, so what!  For 43 minutes, every female viewer gets to enjoy the vicarious experience of being admired by a brilliant, adoring, generous man.  Sometimes, he's so perfect it makes you want to gag a little, but gagging, too, is good for banishing the blues.