Running Away

No I haven't. But it sounds appealing. One of my acquaintances is off to northern Greenland. Now normally I wouldn't be envious. Not one bit. But today I am.

But I am ever mindful no matter where I go, there I am. Everything is an effort. Dressing, showering, cooking, working. Being civil is a huge stretch. I normally don't tolerate fools well but at the moment I am just about hissing when confronted with one. Odd that, how many hapless eejits can walk into your life when you have the message out there: Don't. Come. Near. Me.

My little Teachín - or Tigeen,which is easier to say - has had her fair share of trouble. Gordon-The-Gift is just back from Labrador and we discovered the lovely wood floor had heaved in the month and half he was away even though well insulated. He figures he didn't allow room for "breathing" and also used some fancy long staples when nails would have been better. I feel more badly for him than myself as he has to go back to Labrador tomorrow ("Big Money") and won't be back to fix the floor ("No problem - I'll take it all up and reinstall and not charge you")for another six weeks. He tells me he is poisoned at himself. Meanwhile the solar panel (imagine! no electricity bill!) works well and the rain barrel is installed.

The wee washroom is looking good apart from the fact I can't find a micro corner sink anywhere (6"-8") even in marine/nautical/RV suppliers. I saw a perfect one in my friends' washroom in Dublin but I lacked the tools to secretly pry it off their wall and into my luggage.

This too shall pass. One foot in front of the other. I am comforted to know that I am not alone. Your emails and comments are as a balm to my spirit and I thank you all. I find routine is a salvation. Doing the do things, suiting up and showing up. Sometimes mindlessly. But a far better choice than hiding, disengaged, under the covers hoping for the world to blow away.

Act As If

Well, that's what 'they' say. Until 'it' goes away. And it hasn't. In spite of. Acting as if.

Acting as if life is wonderful and I am so lucky and my gawd you are living your dream.

But right now it is overwhelm. Every single phonecall I get needs something from me. Not that I lay the blame on anyone else. Sometimes, I need a phonecall that just says "How are you?" and means it. Not as a prelude to do this and do that and can you and will you.

But all that aside. This thing always comes out of nowhere, sometimes to stay, at the top of the stairs, at the door. I try not to feed it but I do. A poem came into my head last night and I sat and cried. A harsh poem about words and boots and fists that came out of nowhere when I was five-six-seven. Old ghosts gather as the black dog paces, see? And nothing I can do can stop them. Well medication did for a while but the payback demanded was flatlining. As in dead. The unme.

At this age I know it will get bored if I don't feed it and move on. I will show it no fear. I will do the things I have been taught. Take care of me. Walk in the sunshine. Breathe in the deep sea air. Take some pictures. Write more secret poems. Read other blogs that get the same visits from the same black dog.

For I am not alone in this fragility and how comforting that is.

The Black Dog

Is my value - my self-calculated value - to me, in spite of all my self-esteem boosting practices over the years, still liable to be smashed without warning? Why can’t I move on, and quickly, when casual meetings go sour, trivial conversations go south, and the merest dismissive flick of a stranger’s eye can cause a few hours worth of critical self-evaluation?

I see. This is depression, the Black Dog pacing up and down the hall waiting to come into the room. And, as always, I brood on all the human beings on this planet who are worse off than me, the Haitians, the chockfull cancer wards, and I feel worse. Where did anyone ever get the idea that thinking of those who would trade lives with me in a blink would automatically cheer me up?

I rarely write about it anymore. As it is that infrequent. But sometimes the moon is just right, the tides just so, and I get the urge to go outside and do a spot of baying. I resist it, of course. I used to cover pages and pages, book upon book, with the depresso-ramblings of the compulsive. Never to be shared. Every single journal packed up in Toronto and shipped to me here. Stacked like deadweight in a corner of a guestroom, like the corpses of small animals. I should bury them. They are beyond decay and more into a state of mummification now. But I can’t.

For picking one up, randomly, reminds me forcefully that whatever depths of despair I may be in at the moment (Howard Zinn dead. A SOTU that was laughable. a prorogued Canadian parliament ducking awkward electorate questions and appointing political favourites to the Senate, an economy worsening by the minute, a blog meeting gone sideways) it is as nothing to the way I was then.