Thank you.
Your words run quicksilver
Over my patched places.
I am shattered anew.
But now the light flows through,
And I laugh to see this.
The cracks of all my imperfections
Are not flaws,
Nor am I merely broken.
I am that, yes, but also and at the same time,
Gloriously whole just as I am.
As are we all.
<Warning: Deals with potentially disturbing topics of depression, and suicidality.>
I live with depression. It seems to be an inescapable part of my make-up, as I’ve ALWAYS had melancholy tinging my world a strong grey. And this is not the mild dysthymia gloominess, though that is unpleasant enough, and not something I would wish to downplay. This is the type that brings acute psychic pain, for reasons I still do not know, that meditation has not been able to allay nor medication nor any other treatment. And trust me, I have tried the gamut, up to and including ECT. And yet I’m. Holding on to the edge. Barely.
I had a fairly decent year during the pandemic lockdown. For me. Probably because I felt as though the entire world was now catching up to the way I NORMALLY live: chronically ill; catching any and every virus-C-19, too- that came down the pike; and discovering the ways to experience the great indoors. Welcome to my world. I hardly had to people at all, except for Zoom, which I admit I find rather excruciating. Except for my Buddhist summits, as those were for the most part all watch on demand and not conversational.
But then we went sorta back to IRL. Peopling increased. People I know died. My post-viral fatigue, asthma, and other results from this past year continue to cause problems. Seriously, if you can avoid catching or giving someone else C-19, please do so. Wear masks, socially distance, get vaccinated. Whatever you can. I read that it (the vaccine) helps with mental health also. THAT side effect obviously failed to happen with me. Too bad.
So. Back again to feeling like I’m walking around without a skin. That hurts-a LOT. I’m trying to avoid everything at the moment, but weird things happen to just make life incredibly worse. Like, yesterday I had a really nasty encounter on what I had thought was my safe haven: a Scrabble site! All I did, as far as I can tell, was inadvertently play a player whose skill level was far above mine. I thought that I performed fairly well but at the end of the game game the player sent me a very nasty message. (I did not respond in kind, mind you. Just ensured the player was on my no-play list so we wouldn’t encounter each other again.) But why try to egregiously hurt another player? It’s just Scrabble. But I realize that I’m especially vulnerable right now. So instead of being to brush this off and go on, it resonates. I feel bothered instead of “oh, well, just another rando acting poorly.”
Accompanying the depression is its evil brother, suicidality. I had a suicide in my life in the last 6 months, not the first I’ve experienced. I tried myself as a child. This is a longtime familiar. My tether to this world is still my beloved companion, Miss P. A big burden to place on a 28 pound whippet, I know. But when I brought her to live with me, I made a pact to love and care for her. And I take that responsibility as seriously as I do my life. In some of the meditations I do, we are instructed to focus on moments in life where we felt joy. For me those always center around her. As long as she is here, I’ll be here, if I have any say in it. Depression or no.
I’m not meaning to say that life is unremitting bleakness. There are flashes of light. I watch a video by H.H. The Dalai Lama and find brief hope. I listen to Satie (or a friend sends me a score by Satie) and find brief inspiration. I’m able to connect people who need each other and find brief satisfaction. I write a poem and find brief creation. I share a new dish with a neighbor and find brief kinship. But are you noticing a repetition?
I am keeping up with my studies and my meditation. I do my best to examine this life in terms of what I’ve learned: that these feelings, though acute and wrenching, are naught but feelings and thus temporary and will pass. To accept ALL of this, the depression, the suicidality, the various chronic illnesses, as being what is and not make them worse by wishing things were otherwise. Do what I can to mitigate them, yes, but also accept them. I’m trying. I’m tired. But so far, I’m also still here.
I strike the bowl.
The moon appears.
A chant drones.
The floor trembles.
Another strike.
Time fissures.
There is a brief smell of incense.
All disappears.
The rains have arrived,
Remnants of the hurricane.
If I go outside and lift my face,
Will I taste the salt tang of gulf waters,
Hear the faint sound of Parlez Nous A Boire drift on the wind,
Catch the tantalizing scent of my father’s gumbo?
Or will I find the salt of tears cried by all who’ve lost,
Hear the shriek of a roof as it is torn away,
And smell the smoke from fires that cannot be quenched?
Nostalgia is easy for me,
For I am in the mountains and far from this devastation.
I am geographically lucky at the moment.
steam rises from the cup. consider these things
the cup shatters and the world explodes
celadon shards and tea float in the midst of primal debris.
chaos and noise and confusion
breathe, and then:
sit in silence,
sipping the usual cup of tea.
I swing my mala and throw it.
It tears a hole in the fabric of this existence.
The beads disappear one by one.
I follow them,
While reflecting on impermanence.
I recite gate gate paragate
As I evanesce.
I rose before dawn in the late summer.
I sat on the porch outside my room.
The air was still and redolent with the salty musky scent of the bayou.
The bull frogs were still croaking from the night,
The crickets were chirping,
And a few birds had begun their morning calls.
I drank my usual Gunpowder Green in a hand-thrown mug
And realized I must make a trip to New Orleans soon.
I needed more tea.
How to quiet my mind?
It often seems like a flock of restless birds:
The thoughts dart here and there, as they will.
I breathe and bid them fly away,
Yet they perch to preen and call,
Gently mocking my efforts.
Perhaps the greater wisdom
Says simply to allow the birds
To be as they are
And expand my limited meditation.