Month: August 2015

I left Fate along with the sheep for awhile, and when I came out to get her, Maria had joined her, the two of them were out studying the sheep, keeping them in line. A good team.

In the morning, Maria and Chloe are happy to see one another, a lot of knickering and neighing. Some braying too. Chloe likes to come over to me and drool on me a bit, she has the gift of being both independent and attached, they get pleasure from one another, that is evident.

I walked in the deep woods today, there is an old birch tree I have become fond of, it has great character, it is old and weathered and full of signs and totems and symbolism. It has seen a lot.

They call it depression now, they once called it melancholy, I prefer the word. I woke up awash in melancholy, I felt it deepen throughout the day. I’ve learned enough about melancholy to accept it, to let it wash over me, cleanse me, pass of it’s own accord, as it invariably does.

Thomas Moore wrote that in a society  defended against the tragic sense of life, depression will appear as an enemy, an sickness or malady to be shunted aside or hidden away; yet in such a society, devoted to light, depression, in response, will be unusually strong and present.

Depression grants the gift of experience, Moore wrote,  not as a literal fact but as an attitude toward yourself. You get a sense of having lived through something, of being older and wiser. You know that life is suffering, and that knowledge makes a difference.

For much of my life I was treated for anxiety, that was my disorder. I was a valium addict for 30 years.

Yet later in life, after my divorce, the great recession, loneliness and confusion, I became depressed and nearly ceased to function. Writing has always been my salvation, and it was again.  I wrote a book about my depression, I wanted to share the experience. Because no publisher I knew would publish such a book, I published it myself. in 2008.  It was a picture and text book, it was called Out Of The Shadows, and it sold out instantly.

I abandoned the book, refused to reprint it or discuss it, despite many requests for it. I refused to reply to questions about it, to be interviewed about it, or speak on it’s behalf, or publicize it in any way, even on my blog. I don’t believe I have ever spoken of it.

Some of my very first photos were in Out Of The Shadows and some words about the experience. I have never looked at the book after it’s publication, or seen a copy, i don’t have one. I looked for it on Amazon today and saw there were two copies for sale, one for $37 and one for $55.

I remember the experience of living it, but not the experience of writing it, I was in great distress at the time, I did not think I would survive. I did survive, of course, mostly because of Maria and a strong therapist, and Thomas Moore was right. Depression – or melancholy – was a gift. I’m  not sure why I have abandoned this book so thoroughly, it was important to me at the time. I wanted people to know that one can surmount depression and survive it. In our culture, we are defended against sadness, death and suffering, it always seems to come as a great shock to us, yet nothing could be more inevitable, more universal, more inevitable.

I remember thinking of the title, I had come out of the shadows, and learned that so many others lived in them, and live in them still. I wanted to write the book for them.

In my depression, I lived through something remarkable, transforming. It made me wiser, stronger, more open to healing, to change, to love and learning. It gave me perspective, my photographer, a deeper understanding of writing. I told the doctor that I would not spend the rest of my life in this way, I would change, no matter what it took. I did change.

Perhaps my melancholy was too painful for me to recall, I blocked it out. Perhaps I did not wish to be defined in this way, I did not wish to be seen as the writer who wrote about  depression, it is not the story of my life, it is only one chapter. Or maybe it came in response to the last few weeks, which have been emotional for me,  and tiring. In our cynical world even I sometimes forget that writers and artists feel things in a certain way. The New York Carriage Horses.  Joshua Rockwood. The pain and suffering at Blue Star Equiculture after the suicide of Paul Moshimer.

I think I learned awhile ago that the things I write about are my children, my heart. I feel what they feel, there is a kind of transference. I think melancholy is sometimes the result of emotional draining, a sign of creative exhaustion and the need for renewal and rebirth. I accept this, I rested today. A writing mentor told me that writers can sometimes feel too much. Be careful, he said.

I could barely write this morning, I walked in the woods, herded sheep, tried to read, got drowsy, fell asleep again and again. It came back to me, I remembered it. The Black Dog, Robertson Davies called it, who comes to lie down beside me.

But then, life began to assert itself. Maria made a beautiful hanging piece and sold it in seconds,  she was happy and proud.

Fate came flying to jump in my lap and went sailing over my head and bounced off the wall, onto the floor. She got up and did it again, and went sailing over my head again. Such joy, let’s go see the sheep I said, and she went bouncing off the rear door. I could not help but smile.

Tonight we went to the Round House for open mike night, all these brave people came to share their music and their songs, acts of creative courage and bravery. I thought of Out Of The Shadows, my orphan book, it appeared in my consciousness for the first time and knew I was going to write about it. I knew I had to claim it, to own it. Creativity and melancholy are linked, in so many ways.

To care for the soul, wrote Moore, “we must observe the full range of all its colorings, and resist the temptation to approve only of white, red, and orange – the brilliant colors. The “bright” idea of colorizing old black and white movies is consistent with our culture’s general rejection of the dark and the gray.”

But the dark and the gray are colors too, hues of the soul. In a way, they are my colors, even as I fight for color and light.  Even as it began to lift and leave me, I was grateful for the gift of melancholy, food for the soul.

Maria and I took the dogs into the deep woods. I woke up in a foul mood today, angry and down. I don’t really know why, the Black Dog came and sat beside me. I hope he doesn’t plan to stay to long. I was thinking of the deep and dark depressions I used to struggle through the waves of panic. When I feel this way, I think of the big dogs who shake themselves off in the rain, and I try to shake off the dark mood.

In the woods, Maria found treasures. i beautifully-preserved bird’s next that  had fallen from a tree, several feathers, a larger turkey feather. I’ve walked and walked today, my legs are sore, my spirit a bit drained.