“Snap out of it!” I sometimes tell my husband when he’s being particularly glum. When he interprets an innocuous gesture as negative or takes it personally when a gecko poops on his chair.
My remark often does the job: There’s a flash of self-reflection and whoosh—a self-deprecating laugh.
But it’s not always so easy to snap out of a bad mood. Often it requires more attention and a deeper awareness of our place in the world.
Restart or Rebirth?
We all deal with daily frustrations, whether we’re traveling or not. Technical difficulties interrupt our creative flow. The promised clear sky turns rainy just as we’re heading out the door. A persistent ache keeps us from reaching the goals we’ve set for ourselves.
All kinds of obstacles and mishaps can spoil our mood. But it’s possible to overcome our frustrations before they ruin our energy for the rest of the day. We can experience what I tentatively call “a little rebirth.”
Tentatively, because I’m not a fan of this metaphor. I considered calling such experiences “restart,” but the analogy inherent in that noun makes me cringe even more: We’re not machines. We may “snap out of it” if we’re lucky, but we don’t have a refresh button we can reliably push.
The word “rebirth” at least acknowledges that the experience is organic and active. Frustrations find us with no effort on our part—the neighbor revs his chain saw and voila, we are annoyed! But rebirths require our sustained presence and cooperative surrender: our mindfulness.
I add the adjective “little” to the experience so as not to expect miracles. A moment that frees us from the frustration that might otherwise wreck our day may not manifest permanent change. The rebirth is little because it may help us only once.
How can we make a little rebirth happen?
The first thing we need to do is acknowledge our bad mood and admit it to ourselves. We can take a moment to find the cause for our bad mood, but this ultimately isn’t that important. What matters is our willingness to change our mood. To say: I want to snap out of it and start the day anew.
Next, we can look for something that moves us. This can be a dragon fly landing on our breakfast table and spreading its lacy wings for us to admire. It can also be a toothy smile from the shop keeper’s kid or an unexpected peekaboo player on the commuter train. It can be the awe of hearing the wind play music in the trees, and it can be an internal feeling, a sense of gratitude for where we are or who we get to love.
Nearly anything can give us the opportunity for a little rebirth. All we need to do is pause, pay attention, and allow ourselves to be changed by whatever is happening at that moment. When we pay attention to what moves us, we stop being the center of our universe. And this is liberating. This can snap us out of our bad mood.
Little rebirths can make us feel small and our concerns slight without robbing us of meaning. They can help us put things into perspective and turn a difficult moment into a self-revelation.
For this newsletter, I’ve collected three little rebirths from my recent journeys. May they inspire you to find your own.
1. Between My Headache and My Words
One morning, I slipped away between my headache and my words, the breakers and the boats, and I swam toward that liminal space where the ocean stretches itself thin as a mirror and your mind dips in and out of a consciousness so much bigger than your own. The water was cool against my thoughts, troubled by shifting sand yet clear with purpose. Finger-small fish jumped from the depths in flight and briefly made me feel large and predatory. Then a wave lifted me into its gentle arms and carried me back to shore.
Hoi An, Vietnam, March 17, 2024
2. An Uncle’s Death Anniversary
One afternoon, my husband, Daniel, and I find ourselves in the company of a Vietnamese family commemorating an uncle’s death anniversary. We sit on foldable chairs in nearly insufferable heat in front of a tent where people go in and out to burn incense.
Nobody speaks English and we don’t speak Vietnamese and I begin to feel awkward. We were on our way from Mang Den to Hoi An when our driver, using a translation app, asked us for permission to make a stop. We were tired and didn’t want a delay but had no good reason to deny his small request.
The driver’s mother serves Daniel a black coffee so strong he has trouble finishing it. With great interest, she watches me unwrap the banana leaf from a sticky black lump and bite into the unknown. The lump is a tasty cake made from black rice or tapioca or bean flour with a sweet filing of coconut and seeds. I express my appreciation so well that when it’s time for us to part, she insists on my taking five cakes.
Our driver is content and mime-asks whether he can please make a photo of all of us together.
I smile for the camera and feel a spark: Nothing is impersonal on a journey such as this. A delay is an opportunity to connect. This unusual moment in the scorching heat with death on one side and sweet cakes on the other reminds me of my mother’s rainy funeral nearly three years ago and suddenly I feel strangely at home.
Quang Ngai, Vietnam, April 18, 2024
3. Art’s Reach
One evening, I was walking beside a fashionable young man about half my age. We were on our way from the homestay to a restaurant in town, and although his English was fluent, we had trouble getting a conversation going.
This is not uncommon between two shy people who don’t know each other well, but I let it bother me; as the eldest, I felt responsible. I asked a few more questions that failed to open him, and I was already resigning myself to a frustrating silence when the government speakers on the street began to broadcast their (propaganda) news—this is still a thrice daily practice in modernized Vietnam.
“What are they saying?” I asked the young man.
He startled. “Uhm. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. It’s about the economy, I think. I rarely listen to the news.”
“You probably get your news online,” I said, feeling silly for having asked him to translate when I wasn’t truly interested.
“Yes. But I actually did listen to the broadcast this afternoon,” he went on. “It was about my favorite artist.”
This piqued my interest. Especially when his favorite artist appeared to be a nearly eighty-year-old woman: Bạch Tuyết.
“What kind of artist is she?” I asked.
“A singer of traditional music.”
I later identified her genre as Cải Lương, a modern form of folk opera.
“Why is she your favorite artist?” I asked.
“Well, she’s very good, obviously. She’s been singing since she was sixteen. But what really inspired me is that she’s a Buddhist and went to university at the age of fifty.”
We kept talking about her until we arrived in town. It moved me that he was moved by this woman. It gave me hope for art and its reach, for Vietnam’s public broadcasts, for the potential of shy people to connect, and—why not?—for humanity.
Mang Den, Vietnam, April 14, 2024
* The reason Bạch Tuyết was featured on the government broadcast, I later learned, was that Forbes included her on their 50 Over 50 Asia list.
Author News
The Sunlight Press published my flash fiction “Closed Circle” on their site last week. It’s about how a massive waterfall can make us feel both isolated and united.
The story is inspired by a journey Daniel and I made to Iceland in December 2007. That same journey led to our engagement and later marriage in Volterra, Italy. So I guess I’m saying: Traveling moves us to do all sorts of crazy things.
“Closed Circle” is part of my collection Woman of the Hour forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press in 2025.
Time to Say Goodbye
I began leaning Japanese this month, and it was slow going and hard until I fell in love with the hiragana script. I stopped seeing the process as a task that would teach me a practical skill, and began to appreciate it as an initiation into an art. Now the learning is nothing but beautiful and wondrous. Guess where Daniel and I are headed next?
Thank you for being here.
All my best,
Claire
P.S. What frustrations and little rebirths did you experience? Please share them in the comments.
What a soulful and lovely post. Thank you. I felt I was right there with you. And loved that the artist was featured in Forbes! How great.
Lovely vignettes. And that red snapper! GAH!