It would take a book or a lifetime to write about how a father can influence a daughter. I've started that writing awhile ago, beginning with a poem I wrote when my father was alive. The last few lines I find especially pertinent now and probably will always:
he, protector made me a safety circle
wrapped it tightly around me
me, a young girl, lived, played, hid inside it
as time passed, life dissolved it,
but i now woman, competent and like him
have realized his half of me,
his strength within me.
Without him here, I am left with the him that is part of me and part of my brother and sister, and now my son and daughter. It is uncanny sometimes, the way he flashes across a face, be it my sister's or my son's or my brother's. There he is, I say to myself, as I regard my son and the way he watches cartoons with his lips in a semi-smile, his eyes alighted and depicting casual amusement, or as I regard my sister and the crinkle in her brow that shows up when she is perplexed, or the way my brother regards his car, meticulously, as my father did his. There is the Viteritti part, I say, the part that is my father.
There have been many journal entries, essays, poems, novel excerpts, already; these are my attempts at understanding his influence, like this one from the novel A Portal to Vibrancy :
I am not just like my father when I study Engineering, I am him. He slips into my body and moves it around, mumbles to himself over the equations, moves my arms so my hands clasp behind my head. I stare into the wall, thinking with his brain. When I am him, I feel certain about my life; I move from one equation to the next, like stepping on rocks to cross a river.
Recently I've taken up tennis. I am impressed by how much I think of the sport, how it is becoming an obsession. And there it is again, the Viteritti part, the Dad part, the part that wants to excel, to make the body move with finesse to master a swing and hit a ball; there it is the competitive part that wants to win and impress. I imagine my forehand, the position of the racket when it contacts the ball, how to follow through and I remember how my father did his wrist exercises during a long car ride, readying himself for a base hit. "Think wrists" he once wrote on the concrete wall in the basement where he practiced his swings.
My father was a model provider for his three kids. He not only put a roof over our heads and food in our mouths, he supported us in our studies, spending hours tutoring us in math and science. Being a teacher now, I realize he was actually a pretty good one himself, exercising patience and diligence and orderliness. He went to our games, taught us to love the woods and the outdoors, to respect and honor our elders (did you kiss your grandmother? That "she" is your mother, don't forget that, he would say). My father was not only meticulous with his car, he was that way with pretty much everything, especially his tools. Every tool had a specific function, had a place to be hung on the peg board by the work bench, next to his collection of weights and the bullworker he bought back in the seventies to shape his muscles. My father knew just the right cereal to milk ratio to not leave residual milk in his bowl.
Most importantly, my father had a playful sense of humor and was a formidable tease, as my mother, who took the brunt of his teasing, could attest. She spent years being pinched, splashed and caught off guard by his antics. Once he went so far as to lay a ladder across the back lawn and himself beside it so my mother would think he had just fallen off the roof. Just when he heard real concern in my mother's voice, he started cackling. His laugh was infectious.
He called people by silly nicknames, Butter Mella for my mother, Dud for his mother-in-law, Ditizy for his own mother. This was his way of being cute and loveable. Confident. Close. I wrote about this in an essay titled "Balanced Rock":
Butter Mella was a name my mother's family called her because she looked like a butterball when she was a baby, cute and fat. My father did not start calling my mother Butter Mella until after they were married and he was fully integrated into her family, enough so to learn all the childhood stories. He called her "Hon," sometimes, a full "Honey" when they were having a disagreement and he wanted to persuade her to come around to his side of seeing things. Rarely did he call her by her real name. When they first started dating he asked her if could call her "Kitten" and she sneered at him for being so oblivious. Before her he dated girls, little women with mousy faces and voices. My mother, he soon realized, was no kitten; she was a lioness who liked to lounge, sleep late, and go for the jugular when she believed someone was taking advantage of her. My father knew full well the meaning of "once bitten twice shy" and he respected her. He learned to voice his appreciation, to communicate, because this is what it took.
I can speak for the three of us, my sister, brother, and myself, when I say we are grateful to have my parents' marriage as a model marriage to follow. I am not saying it was perfect, but it had longevity; they knew how to consider one another. In fact, I can honestly say, it was a marriage based on consideration. Here's another excerpt from "Balanced Rock"":
My mother had to put up with my father's family's eccentricities. My grandmother and grandfather used to fight and grumble at each other overtly like bulldogs and this created numerous uncomfortable situations. Having learned to respect family no matter who they are, she called my grandparents "Mom" and "Dad" and reminded my father of his duties as a son, to call them on their birthdays. They had been known to call him on their birthdays and my mother knew this made him feel bad, so she saved him the guilt by reminding him. These are the sorts of things you do in a marriage.
At times, I have a bad attitude about my father's death and I take on an almost existentialist perspective: he's dead, I'm alive and I feel nothing. Time has buried him. What I have realized is it's up to me to keep him alive by recognizing him in myself and others, by writing, by reminiscing, by meditating.
Once, while guided by a teacher through a meditation, the presence of my father
was so strong, it was as if he was inside me orbiting my heart. Tears streamed
through the lashes of my closed eyes. It had been awhile since I
acknowledged him; I had been busy, but more so, self-involved, dejected.
What amazed me about that meditation was that I could feel his
eagerness to come through, as if he had been waiting awhile for me to get with it and pay attention. And this is what a daughter must do: pay attention, no matter how old she is.
"Lotus Opening" by L. Folk
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Tasmanian Tennis and the Search for Poise
I have recently taken up tennis to stay fit and try something new.
It's not easy to be a beginner when you're in your early forties; you
have preconceived ideas about how things should be based on experience
and perceptions. During my first few lessons I literally attacked the
ball. I had Wimbledon on my mind, Maria Sharapova, the Williams
sisters; I felt like I had to be larger than life, hit the ball hard,
slam a serve into the box. But I had it all wrong; I had no poise. I
went at that ball like I go at my life sometimes, afraid and driven by
adrenaline to overcome my fears of not getting it right. You don't make
for a good tennis player when you are a Tasmanian devil whirring across
the court.
What I have learned to seek is poise. Equanimity. Self-possession. I seek to possess myself and not be possessed by fear or anger or stress or angst. Perhaps if I find poise in tennis, I can find it in other areas of my life as well. But what is poise exactly; what are its components? Sure poise stems from ability, and ability implies confidence and experience, but also some luck, as well. It takes time to develop poise; it takes conviction and patience and perseverance. It's a practice, just as meditation is a practice. In meditation, you learn to sit through things and breathe. You learn that the things that possess you have a time limit. You learn patience. You learn to see the subtle progressions that imply change coming. So you stick with it, in hopes that change materializes.
I have started to see those subtle improvements and I've started to believe that you really can teach an old dog new tricks, that the mind has a certain plasticity, an ability to stretch beyond its usual states of functioning.
There's substantial evidence of this plasticity or neuroplasticity, as it is called, in the individuals who have suffered traumas and injuries to the brain. In these extreme cases, brains have recreated neural pathways to rebuild lives. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroanatomist who had a blood clot the size of a golf ball in the left hemisphere of her brain was "just an infant in a woman's body"; she couldn't talk, walk, read, write. It took her eight years to regain her functioning after experts deemed it impossible; her TED talk has become an internet sensation for its hopefulness in documenting the expanse of the human mind.
So if a brain can rebuild a life, just imagine what it can do for your serve.
There are other neuroscientists jumping on the band wagon. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist who studies the brains of meditating monks exclaims that "change is really the rule rather than the exception"and it is up to us to choose the influences that will rewire our consciousness. In the meditating monks, Davidson measured brain rhythms as indicated by gamma oscillations; the more gamma oscillations, the better the clarity of perception. This allows for "a richer, more encompassing sense of what it is to be human."
Davidson emphasizes that the key to changing the brain is practice.
Marie Pasinski, Harvard neurologist and author of Beautiful Brain, Beautiful You says it best:
Regardless of age, your brain has the ability to make new neurons and construct new neural pathways throughout your life. When you engage in new experiences or think in novel ways, new pathways are forged. Every time you think a specific thought, a specific pathway of neurons fires up, neurotransmitters are released and synapses are subtly altered. With repetition this pathway is strengthened.
In our overstimulated society, it only seems natural that an antidote present itself. Even famous role models out there are doing it - turning inward, searching for poise using meditation and the like. In the trailers for the new season of Sesame Street, Cookie Monster is studying the martial arts, discovering that "a little self control can go a long way."
Well, if a blue furry puppet can find poise, then surely it is attainable.
What I have learned to seek is poise. Equanimity. Self-possession. I seek to possess myself and not be possessed by fear or anger or stress or angst. Perhaps if I find poise in tennis, I can find it in other areas of my life as well. But what is poise exactly; what are its components? Sure poise stems from ability, and ability implies confidence and experience, but also some luck, as well. It takes time to develop poise; it takes conviction and patience and perseverance. It's a practice, just as meditation is a practice. In meditation, you learn to sit through things and breathe. You learn that the things that possess you have a time limit. You learn patience. You learn to see the subtle progressions that imply change coming. So you stick with it, in hopes that change materializes.
I have started to see those subtle improvements and I've started to believe that you really can teach an old dog new tricks, that the mind has a certain plasticity, an ability to stretch beyond its usual states of functioning.
There's substantial evidence of this plasticity or neuroplasticity, as it is called, in the individuals who have suffered traumas and injuries to the brain. In these extreme cases, brains have recreated neural pathways to rebuild lives. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, the neuroanatomist who had a blood clot the size of a golf ball in the left hemisphere of her brain was "just an infant in a woman's body"; she couldn't talk, walk, read, write. It took her eight years to regain her functioning after experts deemed it impossible; her TED talk has become an internet sensation for its hopefulness in documenting the expanse of the human mind.
So if a brain can rebuild a life, just imagine what it can do for your serve.
There are other neuroscientists jumping on the band wagon. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist who studies the brains of meditating monks exclaims that "change is really the rule rather than the exception"and it is up to us to choose the influences that will rewire our consciousness. In the meditating monks, Davidson measured brain rhythms as indicated by gamma oscillations; the more gamma oscillations, the better the clarity of perception. This allows for "a richer, more encompassing sense of what it is to be human."
Davidson emphasizes that the key to changing the brain is practice.
Marie Pasinski, Harvard neurologist and author of Beautiful Brain, Beautiful You says it best:
Regardless of age, your brain has the ability to make new neurons and construct new neural pathways throughout your life. When you engage in new experiences or think in novel ways, new pathways are forged. Every time you think a specific thought, a specific pathway of neurons fires up, neurotransmitters are released and synapses are subtly altered. With repetition this pathway is strengthened.
In our overstimulated society, it only seems natural that an antidote present itself. Even famous role models out there are doing it - turning inward, searching for poise using meditation and the like. In the trailers for the new season of Sesame Street, Cookie Monster is studying the martial arts, discovering that "a little self control can go a long way."
Well, if a blue furry puppet can find poise, then surely it is attainable.
Friday, August 30, 2013
The Benefits of Being Gifted: Transcending the Broken-Winged Bird
When I was in grade school I was tested for being "gifted". I apparently failed the test because I was not eligible for the program. My father believed they got it wrong. But doesn't every father believe his kid is gifted?
Mrs. Osborne, a middle-aged Asian woman who lived down the street from us was the teacher of the gifted students. I remember the spruce trees on her front lawn and her white Lincoln parked in the driveway. Always I would pass that sprawling ranch house with its big picture window and the sprawling white car and the spruces and feel the dregs of my ineptitude.
I had befriended Eve Smarz; our mothers met at Lake Morskioko watching our younger sisters play in the sand. Eve was in the gifted program and I regarded her as a special friend. I don't mean that in any derogatory, sarcastic sense; I truly believed there was something exceptional about her and I longed to be near this thing. Eve was imaginative and her imagination suited mine; we created boyfriends for ourselves, BJ from BJ and the Bear for me and Ponch from Chips for her. We dreamed up romantic scenarios where BJ and Ponch rescued us from kidnappers. We wrote detailed scripts of who would say what to whom and when to execute the much anticipated kiss. Eve had long blond hair and a flat, round face. When she ran, she was the mythical Atalanta, her head kept neatly to one plane, as if her strides were impeccably smooth. Once I asked her what they did in the gifted class and she said they sat under their desks and pretended they were in space. "Well that's dumb," I said.
I recently did some research on depression and creativity and ultimately found the article "Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals". I read it and quickly recognized the symptoms. The article had put a name to the vague, disconcerting thoughts and feelings I have felt more than once in my life. The essay, written by someone by the name of James T. Webb, pinpointed existential concerns, specifically death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, how death is "an inevitable occurrence", freedom brings insecurity due to "a lack of external structuring", isolation is experienced by everyone because "no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains and we are nonetheless alone". Contemplation of the first three by an intuitive, pensive individual, especially one grappling with profound disappointment, ultimately results in the belief that life is meaningless and it's all downhill from there.
Most of us feel this way at some point in our lives, but the gifted feel it early on, in childhood and young adulthood and they feel it acutely. Because they are astute, they see what life could be; because they are perceptive, they perceive how the world falls short. The blend of idealism and a keen awareness of the deficiencies of life brings about frustration and disappointment. Their anger is "directed at fate" and is therefore powerless. This powerlessness brings upon depression, a less-than-concrete depression that is especially alienating. Webb explains that gifted individuals quickly "discover that others, particularly of their age, do not share <existential> concerns, but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others' expectations."
Webb talks about the use of touch to establish a "physical connection"; this brings a thoughtful person out of her head and into the realm of physicality. Often a gifted individual is prescribed "hugs" from friends and family. In my early twenties I figured this out on my own. I used sensuality as a drug for angst; it's an immediate fix but it can lead to heartache. Eventually, with the right partner, you learn how to use it wisely.
Webb cites "bibliotherapy", or the research of other talented individuals and how they found success and meaning by creating structure in their lives. Bibliotherapy is a means to understand "that choices are merely forks in the road of life, each of which can lead <the gifted> to their own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment". Most recently I watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best selling memoir on her transcendence from depression and anxiety to spiritual enlightenment. I had seen the movie before, but this time it made a deeper impression. I recognized my anxious, adventurous, epicurean and spiritual sides in Ms. Gilbert and I took heart. To me it said, "Keep tasting life; keep meditating; keep writing and you will be well."
Who exactly are "the gifted"? They are not only the people with aptitude; they are the intuitive, the perceptive; their hallmark is one of sensibility rather than sense. They are vulnerable. They are creative. And it is imperative that these individuals "adopt the message of hope" and trust their creative powers to transcend existential depression and bring meaning to their lives. Webb includes Langston Hughes poem on dreams:
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered in snow.
Mrs. Osborne, a middle-aged Asian woman who lived down the street from us was the teacher of the gifted students. I remember the spruce trees on her front lawn and her white Lincoln parked in the driveway. Always I would pass that sprawling ranch house with its big picture window and the sprawling white car and the spruces and feel the dregs of my ineptitude.
I had befriended Eve Smarz; our mothers met at Lake Morskioko watching our younger sisters play in the sand. Eve was in the gifted program and I regarded her as a special friend. I don't mean that in any derogatory, sarcastic sense; I truly believed there was something exceptional about her and I longed to be near this thing. Eve was imaginative and her imagination suited mine; we created boyfriends for ourselves, BJ from BJ and the Bear for me and Ponch from Chips for her. We dreamed up romantic scenarios where BJ and Ponch rescued us from kidnappers. We wrote detailed scripts of who would say what to whom and when to execute the much anticipated kiss. Eve had long blond hair and a flat, round face. When she ran, she was the mythical Atalanta, her head kept neatly to one plane, as if her strides were impeccably smooth. Once I asked her what they did in the gifted class and she said they sat under their desks and pretended they were in space. "Well that's dumb," I said.
I recently did some research on depression and creativity and ultimately found the article "Existential Depression in Gifted Individuals". I read it and quickly recognized the symptoms. The article had put a name to the vague, disconcerting thoughts and feelings I have felt more than once in my life. The essay, written by someone by the name of James T. Webb, pinpointed existential concerns, specifically death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, how death is "an inevitable occurrence", freedom brings insecurity due to "a lack of external structuring", isolation is experienced by everyone because "no matter how close we become to another person, a gap always remains and we are nonetheless alone". Contemplation of the first three by an intuitive, pensive individual, especially one grappling with profound disappointment, ultimately results in the belief that life is meaningless and it's all downhill from there.
Most of us feel this way at some point in our lives, but the gifted feel it early on, in childhood and young adulthood and they feel it acutely. Because they are astute, they see what life could be; because they are perceptive, they perceive how the world falls short. The blend of idealism and a keen awareness of the deficiencies of life brings about frustration and disappointment. Their anger is "directed at fate" and is therefore powerless. This powerlessness brings upon depression, a less-than-concrete depression that is especially alienating. Webb explains that gifted individuals quickly "discover that others, particularly of their age, do not share <existential> concerns, but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on fitting in with others' expectations."
Webb talks about the use of touch to establish a "physical connection"; this brings a thoughtful person out of her head and into the realm of physicality. Often a gifted individual is prescribed "hugs" from friends and family. In my early twenties I figured this out on my own. I used sensuality as a drug for angst; it's an immediate fix but it can lead to heartache. Eventually, with the right partner, you learn how to use it wisely.
Webb cites "bibliotherapy", or the research of other talented individuals and how they found success and meaning by creating structure in their lives. Bibliotherapy is a means to understand "that choices are merely forks in the road of life, each of which can lead <the gifted> to their own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment". Most recently I watched the movie Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert's best selling memoir on her transcendence from depression and anxiety to spiritual enlightenment. I had seen the movie before, but this time it made a deeper impression. I recognized my anxious, adventurous, epicurean and spiritual sides in Ms. Gilbert and I took heart. To me it said, "Keep tasting life; keep meditating; keep writing and you will be well."
Who exactly are "the gifted"? They are not only the people with aptitude; they are the intuitive, the perceptive; their hallmark is one of sensibility rather than sense. They are vulnerable. They are creative. And it is imperative that these individuals "adopt the message of hope" and trust their creative powers to transcend existential depression and bring meaning to their lives. Webb includes Langston Hughes poem on dreams:
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered in snow.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Prajna and Shenpa
I recently read an article by Pema Chodrin titled "How We Get Hooked". In it she talks about shenpa, that unease and insecurity related to living in an unpredictable world. We get hooked on shenpa, obsess about it, try to dissect it, control it, or we attempt to alleviate it by distracting ourselves with alcohol, drugs, food, sex. Chodrin says "it helps to remember that we may experience two billion kinds of itches and seven quadrillion types of scratching, but there is really only one root shenpa - ego clinging. We experience it as tightening and self absorption."
Being a mother means engaging in a completely selfless act; the ego is virtually ignored. It doesn't like to be ignored, so it will make itself known through shenpa. This shenpa comes in two parts, fear of losing oneself and fear of being a failure as a parent. It's important to acknowledge when the mind, high on shenpa, indulges in exaggeration, because it is precisely this exaggeration that causes depression and anxiety.
I've looked at depression though a literary/artistic lens and now I am looking at it through a mindful/psychoanalytic lens.
In meditation, we learn to sit with shenpa, be with it and breathe. Sometimes this isn't easy, especially if the shenpa is relatively new and intense. But with time, it will soften enough so that one can deal with it. When this happens, prajna kicks in. Chodrin says, "Prajna isn't ego-involved. It's wisdom found in basic goodness, openness, equanimity - which cuts through self absorption." I have witnessed this prajna; it is a deeper voice than the haggard ramblings of shenpa, almost like an underground spring. It is honest and soothing, as if a grandmother were whispering wisdom in your ear. At one point during this depression when I was feeling especially anxious about socializing and preoccupied by uncomfortable feelings, crediting them with being insurmountable, my prajna-grandmother whispered "you're just out of practice, that's all." That made a lot of sense to me; I'm home with the kids most of the time and I am definitely out of practice. "So practice," prajna-grandmother said, and I did.
In meditation we learn that striving will bring on expectation, which is another type of shenpa. In the article, Chodrin talks about how we think we have a good meditation practice when we are open and thoughts come and go, shift and transform like clouds; we compliment ourselves on remaining unattached and open and feel that we "did it right". Afterwards, we compare every meditation practice to this one, judging if it is wrong or right and expecting it to be right and comfortable. This is shenpa, as well, being attached to an outcome. Prajna says, "it is good enough" no matter what the experience is. This takes the pressure off.
When I was a child, I felt as if I moved through shenpas a bit more swiftly and easily than I do now. Perhaps there was less drama surrounding them. Perhaps my mind was more malleable back then because it was less jaded. If someone were to ask me what I want most in this life, for myself, it would be to get back to that mindset.
Being a mother means engaging in a completely selfless act; the ego is virtually ignored. It doesn't like to be ignored, so it will make itself known through shenpa. This shenpa comes in two parts, fear of losing oneself and fear of being a failure as a parent. It's important to acknowledge when the mind, high on shenpa, indulges in exaggeration, because it is precisely this exaggeration that causes depression and anxiety.
I've looked at depression though a literary/artistic lens and now I am looking at it through a mindful/psychoanalytic lens.
In meditation, we learn to sit with shenpa, be with it and breathe. Sometimes this isn't easy, especially if the shenpa is relatively new and intense. But with time, it will soften enough so that one can deal with it. When this happens, prajna kicks in. Chodrin says, "Prajna isn't ego-involved. It's wisdom found in basic goodness, openness, equanimity - which cuts through self absorption." I have witnessed this prajna; it is a deeper voice than the haggard ramblings of shenpa, almost like an underground spring. It is honest and soothing, as if a grandmother were whispering wisdom in your ear. At one point during this depression when I was feeling especially anxious about socializing and preoccupied by uncomfortable feelings, crediting them with being insurmountable, my prajna-grandmother whispered "you're just out of practice, that's all." That made a lot of sense to me; I'm home with the kids most of the time and I am definitely out of practice. "So practice," prajna-grandmother said, and I did.
In meditation we learn that striving will bring on expectation, which is another type of shenpa. In the article, Chodrin talks about how we think we have a good meditation practice when we are open and thoughts come and go, shift and transform like clouds; we compliment ourselves on remaining unattached and open and feel that we "did it right". Afterwards, we compare every meditation practice to this one, judging if it is wrong or right and expecting it to be right and comfortable. This is shenpa, as well, being attached to an outcome. Prajna says, "it is good enough" no matter what the experience is. This takes the pressure off.
When I was a child, I felt as if I moved through shenpas a bit more swiftly and easily than I do now. Perhaps there was less drama surrounding them. Perhaps my mind was more malleable back then because it was less jaded. If someone were to ask me what I want most in this life, for myself, it would be to get back to that mindset.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
A Creativity Perverse
To continue this discussion on depression, I feel altered, as if someone re-coded the software of my thoughts, or no, gave them a virus that inserts distortion, angst, and fear into perfectly good thinking. I literally try joyous thoughts on for size; they perch a moment like a sparrow on a pine branch, then they scamper away. I try and take the Buddhist approach, to be curious. Why this state of mind? What is the impetus? Boredom? Failure? Insecurity? Lack of independence? I am curled up in the corner of my own mind, as a person would be if a snake slithered into the room. When people talk to me, the viral software of my thoughts spits and churns and I am distracted. I unscramble, uncurl from my corner, take a broom, wave it at the snake. I am myself for a moment. I choose me. I say something relevant, not brilliant, but relevant. I manage. I cheer myself on.
You know it's depression when you can't wave the snake out of the house and into the garden. You wave at it, but it only slithers under the table or the couch. It's still there. You make love to your husband, you can follow through with sensation and orgasm, but afterward, you lie in bed and the snake is wrapped around your ankle.
But what if the snake is a garter snake, my therapist says. Indeed. The snake, in reality, is a garter snake, benign and trite to everyone else. But in my mind, the mind of the oppressed novelist, the snake is a cobra.
Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One's Own:
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to.
The gift, in this case, is creativity. When a creative person is put in a situation hostile to creativity, the creativity becomes perverse. This perverse creativity is depression.
I chastise myself for this depression. Now, I tell myself, is not the time to write. But the mind knows nothing about time, when it is time for this and when it is time for that. The mind is and the mind will be whatever it wants. You can't file it away under a label marked "Years devoted to child rearing", or "time devoted to making money". It wants out, to be free, to think, be inspired and imagine constructively and if it can't do that, it will be destructive. I remember what my dog Ralphie did to his paws when I was away all day at work; he licked the fur off of them. He was a high energy dog who needed to run and my being away all day forced him to turn on himself. I feel the same way now; the energy of my mind previously used to imagine plot and character and scene has turned on me; I spiral in somber moods. I am fatalistic. Obsessive. I hide my internal life, covet it as I would a malicious sin.
This is utterly taboo to write such things. But I believe it is better to write them than not to write them, for obvious reasons.
You know it's depression when you can't wave the snake out of the house and into the garden. You wave at it, but it only slithers under the table or the couch. It's still there. You make love to your husband, you can follow through with sensation and orgasm, but afterward, you lie in bed and the snake is wrapped around your ankle.
But what if the snake is a garter snake, my therapist says. Indeed. The snake, in reality, is a garter snake, benign and trite to everyone else. But in my mind, the mind of the oppressed novelist, the snake is a cobra.
Virginia Woolf writes in A Room of One's Own:
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Bronte who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to.
The gift, in this case, is creativity. When a creative person is put in a situation hostile to creativity, the creativity becomes perverse. This perverse creativity is depression.
I chastise myself for this depression. Now, I tell myself, is not the time to write. But the mind knows nothing about time, when it is time for this and when it is time for that. The mind is and the mind will be whatever it wants. You can't file it away under a label marked "Years devoted to child rearing", or "time devoted to making money". It wants out, to be free, to think, be inspired and imagine constructively and if it can't do that, it will be destructive. I remember what my dog Ralphie did to his paws when I was away all day at work; he licked the fur off of them. He was a high energy dog who needed to run and my being away all day forced him to turn on himself. I feel the same way now; the energy of my mind previously used to imagine plot and character and scene has turned on me; I spiral in somber moods. I am fatalistic. Obsessive. I hide my internal life, covet it as I would a malicious sin.
This is utterly taboo to write such things. But I believe it is better to write them than not to write them, for obvious reasons.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Thoughts on Depression
I have been reading Stoner by John Williams. The book is written with such heart, such honesty, I find myself gasping at times. I found this one paragraph that seemed to reach me, especially now, as I deal with a bout of depression:
During that year, and especially in the winter months, he found himself returning more and more frequently to such a state of unreality; at will, he seemed able to remove his consciousness from the body that contained it, and he observed himself as if he were an oddly familiar stranger doing the oddly familiar things that he had to do. It was a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered. He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.
I have felt this sort of dissociation and it has terrified me. I wrote about it in one of my novels:
-->An eye a few inches above my head monitors my existence, the large white blocks of the classroom wall, small patches of writing, names, phone numbers, craggy hearts and penises, the blemish in the scalp of Patrick Nealy's too short hair. The eye spies white underwear against the metal lockers, and the fluorescent light flickering above the bodies. There was once a curiosity of who's got what, big boobs, birthmarks, a patch of unruly pubic hair but even this has become ordinary. The eye follows the dirtied snow on the side of the road, flecks of sand caught in ice and spots the dead squirrel curled in the debris of candy bar wrappers, Coke can tabs, chrome shards. Decay marks time passed; a once fleshy thing becomes a mass of fur and white bone picked clean.
Where does this dissociation come from? I think when you are depressed, you are exceptionally inward. You send out a periscope from inside yourself to check out the world. You can view yourself from this periscope, this eye, and it is a surreal experience.
I'm not particularly sure I should be writing about depression. I don't want to delve into it if that's going to put me in deeper; it's weird and scary enough. But writing has always been a way of exploring and exploring is a way to learn. If you can debunk something by writing about it, you are less afraid of it. Knowledge is power.
One night, in that half way house between sleep and consciousness, I wrote this:
This is what boredom and depression do to the mind; it ostracizes itself. Thoughts are irrational and negative; they are feverish exaggerations to keep oneself occupied during the day. I want to be a part of the human race, not an anomaly, as my mind tells me I am. I take care of the babies, I float, I spin in high anxiety. I listen to other people talk about their lives and become jealous. I knock myself, feel pangs of ineptitude. I am overly self conscious. The garbage of the mind, irrational fears, has a putrid stench. It sours my gut. Do something for others, says a voice. Distract that inner child from her fears. You could go back to school. You could study for a PhD and become an important person. School has always given you a focus and has eradicated some of the anxiety and existential angst. Here little kiddie, kiddie, go get a degree. Amuse yourself with that for awhile. I pick through my negative thoughts, reprimand myself for having them, hold them closely to the light and berate myself for doing this as well.
And I contained that irrational, negative thought in my mind in a small cage as if it were a viper I had to protect myself from and had to watch intently for fear of its escape. And the thought was of fear and I how I feared the fear and this put a tightness in my throat that I could not rid myself of. And this tightness was terrifying and titillating because at any moment I could panic, but I didn't. I told myself before I went to my therapy session, if she tells me this is no big deal, that this is the greatest complaint of people with anxiety- fear of the fear of the fear of the- , how fear and thought bring about sensation and it is normal, then I would not be the anomaly that I am. I would be just as other humans are, vulnerable to their minds. And this is just what she did and I felt better. Now I must find a way to continue to believe her.
The problem is, I don't think that a depression can be debunked. You can't think it away. You can't reason with it; most of it is unfounded and irrational. You just have to live it away, if that makes any sense. Yes, take medication, talk therapy, blah, blah, but I think to truly do away with it, you must want to be engaged, wholly engaged in your life. I can't say that I am right now. There is a lot of busy work in taking care of babies; there are moments of pure tenderness, but there is a lot of space for the mind to play with while the rest of me caters to their every need. This gets me into trouble.
I told my therapist I saw the depression inside me, when I was out for a run. It was a fat, Buddha-like demon that was laughing at me. Laughing, because everything it says is a trick and I fall for it all, take it all so seriously.
When I should be laughing too.
During that year, and especially in the winter months, he found himself returning more and more frequently to such a state of unreality; at will, he seemed able to remove his consciousness from the body that contained it, and he observed himself as if he were an oddly familiar stranger doing the oddly familiar things that he had to do. It was a dissociation that he had never felt before; he knew that he ought to be troubled by it, but he was numb, and he could not convince himself that it mattered. He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.
I have felt this sort of dissociation and it has terrified me. I wrote about it in one of my novels:
-->An eye a few inches above my head monitors my existence, the large white blocks of the classroom wall, small patches of writing, names, phone numbers, craggy hearts and penises, the blemish in the scalp of Patrick Nealy's too short hair. The eye spies white underwear against the metal lockers, and the fluorescent light flickering above the bodies. There was once a curiosity of who's got what, big boobs, birthmarks, a patch of unruly pubic hair but even this has become ordinary. The eye follows the dirtied snow on the side of the road, flecks of sand caught in ice and spots the dead squirrel curled in the debris of candy bar wrappers, Coke can tabs, chrome shards. Decay marks time passed; a once fleshy thing becomes a mass of fur and white bone picked clean.
Where does this dissociation come from? I think when you are depressed, you are exceptionally inward. You send out a periscope from inside yourself to check out the world. You can view yourself from this periscope, this eye, and it is a surreal experience.
I'm not particularly sure I should be writing about depression. I don't want to delve into it if that's going to put me in deeper; it's weird and scary enough. But writing has always been a way of exploring and exploring is a way to learn. If you can debunk something by writing about it, you are less afraid of it. Knowledge is power.
One night, in that half way house between sleep and consciousness, I wrote this:
This is what boredom and depression do to the mind; it ostracizes itself. Thoughts are irrational and negative; they are feverish exaggerations to keep oneself occupied during the day. I want to be a part of the human race, not an anomaly, as my mind tells me I am. I take care of the babies, I float, I spin in high anxiety. I listen to other people talk about their lives and become jealous. I knock myself, feel pangs of ineptitude. I am overly self conscious. The garbage of the mind, irrational fears, has a putrid stench. It sours my gut. Do something for others, says a voice. Distract that inner child from her fears. You could go back to school. You could study for a PhD and become an important person. School has always given you a focus and has eradicated some of the anxiety and existential angst. Here little kiddie, kiddie, go get a degree. Amuse yourself with that for awhile. I pick through my negative thoughts, reprimand myself for having them, hold them closely to the light and berate myself for doing this as well.
And I contained that irrational, negative thought in my mind in a small cage as if it were a viper I had to protect myself from and had to watch intently for fear of its escape. And the thought was of fear and I how I feared the fear and this put a tightness in my throat that I could not rid myself of. And this tightness was terrifying and titillating because at any moment I could panic, but I didn't. I told myself before I went to my therapy session, if she tells me this is no big deal, that this is the greatest complaint of people with anxiety- fear of the fear of the fear of the- , how fear and thought bring about sensation and it is normal, then I would not be the anomaly that I am. I would be just as other humans are, vulnerable to their minds. And this is just what she did and I felt better. Now I must find a way to continue to believe her.
The problem is, I don't think that a depression can be debunked. You can't think it away. You can't reason with it; most of it is unfounded and irrational. You just have to live it away, if that makes any sense. Yes, take medication, talk therapy, blah, blah, but I think to truly do away with it, you must want to be engaged, wholly engaged in your life. I can't say that I am right now. There is a lot of busy work in taking care of babies; there are moments of pure tenderness, but there is a lot of space for the mind to play with while the rest of me caters to their every need. This gets me into trouble.
I told my therapist I saw the depression inside me, when I was out for a run. It was a fat, Buddha-like demon that was laughing at me. Laughing, because everything it says is a trick and I fall for it all, take it all so seriously.
When I should be laughing too.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
A Tidbit from Mother T
I used to listen to NPR in the mornings, to all the people doing great things and I thought to myself, "They're safe. They're keeping themselves busy and existential angst is no bee in their bonnet." I came to know existential angst in my twenties; a doctor literally diagnosed me with it. I had no idea what was happening to me then; I knew I only felt dread 24-7. I have since realized that my poor career choice coupled with a slew of failed relationships had made a breeding ground for EA. It was a long, shaky road to find what was meaningful in my life, but I eventually did.
EA started creeping back in recently and this old veteran didn't know what to do with it. I questioned myself, why am I not thrilled with taking care of twin babies everyday morning to night? Where the hell am I going with my career? Why haven't I been on NPR yet? Why does everything seem so tiresome and meaningless? Am I having a midlife crisis?
Well, a brain that's been writing and writing and writing for the past ten years or more is used to stimulating itself. You would think that taking care of twin babies would kill off a few thousand brain cells and EA wouldn't be an issue, but that, sadly, has not been the case. I now spend the days researching different illnesses I might have or torturing myself with anxiety about anxiety.
There's humor in that somewhere.
The one thing that stopped EA in its tracks was a quote I read by Mother Teresa. It says, "In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
I don't know what Sartre would make of this and I don't care because it rang true for me. As a mother, that's what I do, a myriad of small things, but I do them with a great love. And it may not make the day go any easier, but it's something.
EA started creeping back in recently and this old veteran didn't know what to do with it. I questioned myself, why am I not thrilled with taking care of twin babies everyday morning to night? Where the hell am I going with my career? Why haven't I been on NPR yet? Why does everything seem so tiresome and meaningless? Am I having a midlife crisis?
Well, a brain that's been writing and writing and writing for the past ten years or more is used to stimulating itself. You would think that taking care of twin babies would kill off a few thousand brain cells and EA wouldn't be an issue, but that, sadly, has not been the case. I now spend the days researching different illnesses I might have or torturing myself with anxiety about anxiety.
There's humor in that somewhere.
The one thing that stopped EA in its tracks was a quote I read by Mother Teresa. It says, "In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
I don't know what Sartre would make of this and I don't care because it rang true for me. As a mother, that's what I do, a myriad of small things, but I do them with a great love. And it may not make the day go any easier, but it's something.
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