From my journal for November 25, 1995<\/p>\n
The truth is that my ability to express my creativity is very fragile, needs a lot of support and safety and no expectations.\u00a0 <\/span>This is very painful because at the same time I know\/feel a wealth of creative energy pressing to get out.\u00a0 <\/span>But at the moment, I don\u2019t know how to do it, and I don\u2019t know how to set up support for myself \u2014 other than what I\u2019m already doing, i.e. pottery class and circle dance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
November 26<\/p>\n
The night before last I was lying there trying to go to sleep, I was in both emotional and physical pain, and instead of getting a Nuprin I tried saying \u201cthere there\u201d to myself, and it actually worked to ease the pain.\u00a0 <\/span>Last night I was having similar difficulties, so I tried to pay attention to what was happening and discovered that there was a lot of tightness in my middle and I was trying to open it up or escape.\u00a0 <\/span>So I worked at just being with it, at noticing how the tightness inhibited my breathing and pressed on my heart, and it began to ease.\u00a0 <\/span>I make these notes to remind myself that just \u201cbeing with\u201d something does seem to make a space that allows it to change.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t have to be always frantically trying to make something happen, and it doesn\u2019t mean that I will be stuck with something unpleasant if I stop trying to make it go away.\u00a0 <\/span>I see that this is beginning a practice of \u201cbeing with\u201d, beginning with things that are relatively easy.\u00a0 <\/span>Perhaps if I keep practicing, I\u2019ll be able to one day \u2018be\u2019 with the noise of the planes<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span>(One went by yesterday, a distant sound, but I felt my heart close up, I felt completely frozen and stuck, and it was very scary and discouraging.\u00a0 <\/span>But I see that I am too overwhelmed to even try to \u201cbe with\u201d it, I need to get further along with the practice.)<\/p>\n
My plan for today is to go up to the hut and paint a big piece of paper black, green, and purple\u00a0<\/span>so I can make a fright wig for the Lady of the Black Lagoon.\u00a0 <\/span>I got two tarps yesterday, the plastic and paper kind, so that\u2019s the last obstacle removed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is the first mention of the “Lady of the Black Lagoon.” I wonder if this is an expression of “celebrating the depression.” I do wish I had a picture.<\/p>\n
I like the idea of celebrating the depression instead of fighting it.\u00a0 <\/span>Did I ever finish writing about the gifts that I see?\u00a0 <\/span>That the depression has forced me into a place where life looks so bleak, and accomplishment so impossible, and the future so uninhabitable, that I am actually considering building a sound-proof room and spending my time in there making \u2014 no playing around with collage projects \u2014 just the lowest scale, most \u201cuseless\u201d pretense at creativity that I cam imagine.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead of saying \u201cBut it\u2019s self-indulgent, other people can\u2019t afford to retreat like this, blah, blah, blah…\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I say \u201cWhy not?\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t do anything else.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And as for worrying about having money for the future, that seems ridiculous.\u00a0 <\/span>I can always climb the mountain and go to sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>So there\u2019s some sense of being brought back to the question \u201cWhat is really important in my life?” and being reminded, as in the aftermath of Fiona\u2019s death, that what counts is the quality of daily life, the little blessings, the people, animals, and things I love.\u00a0 <\/span>This is harder than that time, because Fiona\u2019s death made the little things shine out with great clarity, there was light within the pain.\u00a0 <\/span>Depression feels like there is no light at all, and even the pain is too dull to remind me that I\u2019m alive.\u00a0 <\/span>Instead of feeling unbearably alive, pierced by the contrasts, I just feel dead, the little things hidden in the fog, the people I love at a distance.\u00a0 <\/span>All I have left is my knowing that these things are important to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think I’ve been very lucky that I was, and still am, able to “know” what’s important to me no matter how disabled I am. Yes, there are times when I can’t even manage that, but they’ve never lasted long enough for me to commit suicide.<\/p>\n
I never did a blog post about Fiona’s death. She was our first dog, hit by a truck on the road before she was a year old. In an earlier blog post, material from 1996<\/a>, I wrote “I think of thunder and wind and fire, and the hands of God, at the time of Fiona\u2019s death.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From my journal for November 25, 1995 The truth is that my ability to express my creativity is very fragile, needs a lot of support and safety and no expectations.\u00a0 This is very painful because at the same time I … Continue reading