An Unquiet Mind: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

After David’s death, Kay retreated into herself and “shuttered her heart.” She focused on work, determined not to allow the years of emotional pain she’d suffered recently affect her professional life. She remained on lithium and found that, though her moods were still intense and periods of depression still visited her, her life had a more even keel. Things were stable and good, but Kay soon found herself exhausted. She decided to take a yearlong sabbatical in England to study mood disorders in British artists and writers—it was to be her first break from UCLA in over eight years.

In England, Kay split her time between London and Oxford as she conducted research at two teaching hospitals. In Oxford, she found herself reminded of her time at St. Andrews, in awe of the place’s grand traditions and ancient buildings. She enjoyed a large suite of rooms and sumptuous dinners with students and faculty alike each evening, and she often traveled back and forth to and from London, where she enjoyed walks in the parks and trips to the city’s many museums. Kay’s year in England helped her realize that back in California, she’d simply been “treading water”—she’d been focusing on surviving rather than living life to its fullest. She left England with a renewed sense of peace, and a renewed faith in the power of love.

During her year in England, Kay visited David’s grave in the city of Dorset just once. The experience was emotional and overwhelming—but alongside her sadness, she felt a renewed sense of gratitude for the ways in which David had loved and accepted her. It had been four years since David’s death when, in the middle of her sabbatical, she found love in England once again.

A “moody, […] charming Englishman” swept Kay off her feet at a dinner party, where they were introduced by mutual friends. Kay found an ease in their relationship—and yet also an intensity. This new lover, like David, was understanding of Kay’s struggles with manic-depressive illness. When she complained to him about feeling frightened to explore a lower dose of lithium, as her psychiatrist had recently suggested, the Englishman urged Kay to try it—he promised to watch out for her and take care of her no matter what happened. Kay cut back on her dosage and found a “dramatic” change in her experience of the world around her. Everything seemed vivid again—her focus improved, her concentration was restored, and her capacity to feel joy and sadness resurfaced.

Kay writes about an anthology of poems about love that the Englishman gave her after they’d spent several days alone together: one of the poems read “Thank you for a lovely weekend. They tell me it rained.”