i'll just slide back down to the bottom

Oh. That hiding under a rock thing was a feint. Cloud of ink.

Of course.

And yesterday was so good too. I had hoped...

But as Dad said, at least I had one good day.

Pretty damn cold comfort though.

a heap of stuff; or, "is" hides better than Waldo

This morning a vicious migraine clamped down on my temples and my skull has begun to throb with its own version of Drums, drums in the deep. Probably it comes as much from suppressed tears as it does from the usual apparently random causes that precipitate these lovely headaches. I've had a much better week this week, but hope and cheer and determination sometimes collapse into the underlying sorrow just a little bit, and this sorrow has a particular external, as opposed to general biochemical, source.

I've worked really hard not to think about it, to the point where I even watch episodes of The Office in the mornings while I get ready for work in order to fill the silence which would open up room in my head for thinking about things I don't want to think about. I don't feel like crying and I don't feel like feeling sad. Unfortunately I know enough to know that the crying and the sadness will out in the end whether I want them to or not, but I wish I could just skip that stupid stage and move on to serenity.

Oh well. I did get a little watery the other day driving home in the downpour when I finally seized all my courage and turned off the music to face the silence and listen for God in the rain that washed over the car. And found, sort of like Jonah did, that the still small voice said, Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. At that point I felt my face contort and I sniffled, "Okay. Okay..." because oftentimes comfort allows the safety one needs in order to relax the tight reins holding back the whelming emotions.

As a sort of backhanded ray of sunshine, though, this bit of unpleasantness stems from actual grief, not depression. The devilfish has not died, but it has loosened its stranglehold and retreated under a rock for the time being. I might not feel great at the moment, but the not-greatness reflects something that everyone undergoes at some point, and while I feel about as much desire as I usually do to let people in on it, I don't feel as isolated from humanity in this kind of unhappiness.

For my newest favorite coping mechanism, I have begun to take a strong measure of delight in looking like a million bucks at all possible times. Over the past year I have pieced together a theory of beauty which asserts that real beauty, far from intimidating and undermining others' sense of worth, comforts, heals and restores personhood to people. God created beauty to bring joy to others, and God created woman as the height of creation's beauty. In our vain, shallow, cutthroat social view of beauty we tend, I think, to lose sight of beauty's designed purpose. I have noticed, from both the giving and the receiving perspectives, that when a beautiful person shows you kindness, you feel deeply valued, perhaps particularly because with our social esteem of appearance as a power-driven status symbol we experience more cruelty than kindness in the hands of a bloodless beauty designed to steal, kill and destroy.

I don't worship at that altar. I like for people to feel better after talking to me. Also I take satisfaction in applying my makeup just so for the best effect, selecting pieces for the perfect outfit, and, lately, styling my hair. I only recently discovered that my hair has harbored a hidden waviness most of my life, so this summer has seen me sporting waves and curls as I never knew I could before; and today I decided to play with the flatiron for thick, straight hair, with pleasing results. Four years of growing out my hair have brought it to the bottom line of my shoulder blades, and, with all of my new products to coax it into meek submission, I can finally enjoy wearing it down.

In addition to great makeup, clothes and hair, I have discovered the fun in French-tipping my toenails. I hit upon this idea a couple of weeks ago when the anxiety made my hands tremble and I needed to find an occupation for them lest they turn destructive. I wanted something that would keep them busy, something that would require focus, and boy did my toenails need some work, and the usual fire engine red had lost its appeal....oh!

So I bought a little French manicure kit and spent an evening talking to Hillori and working on my toenails. (I guess this makes it a French pedicure. I hate nail polish of any kind on my fingernails; they feel like they can't breathe.) I adored the natural, elegant look and slightly muted naughty feel of naked-looking feet that resulted.

But of all these new attentions to detail -- or perhaps because of them, in combination with learning to see myself rightly in therapy -- I most enjoy my gradual acceptance of my body shape. From my adolescence I have held my sister in my mind as the definition of body-type beauty, especially since everyone worshiped her appearance, which pretty much doomed me to a self-image of hideousness because her little bird-bones allowed her a willowiness that I with my solid German bones of steel could never hope to achieve, I who skipped willowy and went straight to womanly in a sudden flowering of curves at the age of twelve.

So for twenty-six years (okay, fourteen, if you want real specificity) I thought of myself as heavy and plain because I couldn't weigh ninety-nine pounds like my sister. But over the last year I have begun to remove those lenses and look at myself objectively; and objectively I bear an hourglass figure in almost perfect proportions. I have curves where I should have curves and a well-defined waist, and my height makes me look slender, with legs that go on forever. Essentially I have your classic Grecian statue figure, which the modeling world holds in contempt, but it suits me.

No one can ever call me skinny. My breasts and hips and thighs and rear and little bit of tummy don't apologize for themselves. But "slender" applies, and if the catcalls and double-takes I get walking down the street provide any kind of measure (however dubious a privilege), I look just fine. Everyone I know calls me beautiful -- more to my face than I ever recall hearing before -- and in this instance I believe I must trust -- and want to trust, and have begun to trust -- the popular opinion. (In truth I really do think of myself as beautiful, for and to and by myself -- but the context of me with other people has caused a lot of the persisting self-negativity.)

I don't expect to arrive at perfect self-confidence overnight; I still experience that jolt of guilt and shame and envy when a nearly two-dimensional girl walks by in designer clothes that flaunt every bony angle. But I do see progress in myself -- a lessening of guilt and shame and envy, a growing gladness to look the way I look as naturally as I look it, an increasing delight to fit the way I do into my own skin.

I did not post any of this in search of compliments. I still shift uncomfortably when anyone compliments me, though I have consciously begun to undertake a better acceptance of praise, which probably means a better acceptance of self. If God delights in me (as He says He does in Zephaniah 3:17), how can I tell Him, "No, You shouldn't, You've got me all wrong"? I still get humility mixed up with self-deprecation, but at least I know that now.

So the progress pleases me, though I have a long road ahead of me still. But I don't have to "fix" everything, or even anything, before whatever next step toward my destiny lies in my future. I don't have to heal all the way or make myself perfect (I know, I couldn't anyway, but I have always demanded perfection of myself, so learning to give myself grace takes time and requires a lot of disciplined reminders) before God will let me proceed to the next level. I get to move forward as simply Sarah, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, a memo apparently went 'round last night declaring today Needy Whiny Demanding Hold-My-Hand Stupid Client Day, and all of our clients, past and present, have acted accordingly from 8:30 a.m. when I walked through the door until now. After work I plan to drive straight home and down a dirty martini (which I just learned to make last weekend -- with gin, of course, as the foundational ingredient for a true martini, and dry vermouth and olive brine. And three olives. I always drink martinis with three olives).

You will notice that, of all the sentences comprising this post, only this one in any way utilizes any form of the verb "to be," and that as a direct object and not a verb. I did this for two reasons: to prove that I could, and as a structural and tonal symbol of the tight control with which I have bound my emotional state over the last month. If it sounds stiff, formal, and a little unnatural, so have I sounded, and felt, though I've started to unbend.

up a notch

Yesterday pissed me off. But then it ended on a splendid note, so on the whole, I call it a win.

So the financial consultant who rents office space from my boss hired a new rookie to help him out, and Cindy and I loathe the rookie. His addition to the office shifts our numbers to four men and two women, and, while the other three office men are gentlemen of good breeding and consideration, the rookie, a kid a couple of years younger than I, lacks some key etiquette practices that keep co-ed small-business working environments liveable.

The kid would irritate me foundationally by virtue of his personality. He's one of those lanky, freshly scrubbed, innocuously happy arrogant little roosters who is so terribly excited to be mediocre that my nose wrinkles involuntarily whenever he enters the room. Also he has this high-pitched giggle that tempts me to hurt his feelings, and an almost amusing manner of condescension that practically demands that I hurt his feelings. I'm keeping a lid on it because I've been simmering in wrathful hormones for a week and don't want to be absurdly unfair to the kid.

But he's committed two egregious breathes of etiquette that have both Cindy and me hoping he'll do it again so that we can yell at him.

See, it's a small office, and the building itself used to be one of those vast homes of Victorian wealth, complete with back stairs and servants' quarters on the third floor. The law office occupies the second floor, and Brian (my boss) did a lot of remodeling himself, so it looks gorgeous. Included in its refurbished, classic urban renewal aura is a single restroom shared by all. It's clean and spacious -- or it was clean, until Skippy started working here. His arrival has been most notably marked by the sudden, constant upright position of the toilet seat. This negligent habit is irritating enough all on its own – dude, this isn’t your dorm – but he has added a Count II which is not only irritating, but gross: He dribbles.

Now, I’m not a terribly squeamish person. But seriously, kid, if you pee on the toilet or the floor, wipe it the fuck up and wash your hands. Don’t leave it to darken and dry on the toilet rim (by the way, the toilet seat takes less than a second to put down) or the floor tile. If you have some kind of aiming problem, go back to basic training and toss a handful of Cheerios in the toilet at home and get some practice. Because when you work with women – especially two considerate women such as Cindy and myself who are careful to keep the byproducts of menstruation tucked away from all five of the human senses – you need to stop acting like a college kid and think about appearances a little. Not every woman indulgently wants to clean up your little-boy messes, and maybe you can’t smell it yourself, but urine? Stinks. Oh yeah, and we have clients that come in and use that bathroom too. Welcome to our office.

So Cindy and I have both been seething about it, but took it to Brian first so he could handle it. Words have been passed along to the Whiz Kid, twice. Now we’re both clenching our jaws and waiting to see if the second talking-to took. We’d love to take him down a peg or two; anyone that graciously informs me, as I glance at the conference room schedule for him, which day of the week it is today, and bestows upon Cindy the benevolent invitation to “look at some of his books” has it coming.

I was hissing about the whole situation to Brian yesterday afternoon, which he found amusing.

“He thinks he’s all that,” I said. “His mother misinformed him.”

Brian laughed. “But she was so certain,” he said.

“Well, I don’t think she’s all that bright,” I said.

Ugh ugh ugh.

As I left the office yesterday in a foul mood the floodgates of heaven released some pent-up tension of their own, and I found myself, for perhaps the hundred billionth time this summer, navigating the back highway home in a deluge. I actually love warm, rainy summer days, and as I squinted through the blurred windshield trying to pick out my lane on Route 5, I had the sudden longing to run around in the rain on the beach. So I stopped at Freeport instead of heading home, donned a not-quite-water-resistant jacket, pulled off my sandals and headed down the beach to where the rain and the clouds and the lake swallowed the world in moving gray.

It was beautiful. And I got soaked. I haven't been that happy in a long time. No one else was on the beach, I was completely alone with the surging water, its fresh stony smell blew over me with the wind, the rain struck the waves with a rinsing sound, and I waded out up to the mid-thigh (my skirt was drenched anyway) and looked out over the lake with the water running down my face and felt a kind of simplicity of being that I lose track of during most of my days. Some of the disconnect that has been making the last month hellish fell away, and I felt closer to The Thing Itself, the comfort of my transience which strangely assures my place in the world, the constant transcendent presence of a paradoxically immanent and wholly Other God whose love does not change. It's easier for me to believe on the beach and in the rain. Truth is elemental there, stripped down, inarguable, inviolate.

After that brief restoration, I went home, changed into dry clothes and headed to Linnéa's house for a get-together of a bunch of girls. We ate tacos, watched chick flicks and talked about life and the faith. The Bible study idea is getting good reactions, and we're also starting a Monday night cooking club for people who like being adventurous with food.

The night was so misty and mysterious that when I drove home at 11:30 I parked the car in my parents' driveway and went for a walk. (I'm still not sleeping all that well, so I figured I might as well be out roaming the half-lit streets and getting wisps of cloud in my hair as tossing and staring at the ceiling.) I love those half-creepy summer nights where the temperature is under 70 but you don't feel cold, and everything is muffled and shrouded and still. Anything seems possible on those nights.

So today finds me tired but feeling balanced and glad and eager for the immediate future (which is damn close to loving the present, so...progress). And today is full of prospects, and it's lunchtime. A good day.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger

Last night I finally saw Coraline.

It was fabulous. I pretty much automatically love anything Tim Burton does (I can't wait for Alice in Wonderland), and this film was no exception.

And can I just say that Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton have my love forever for making the black cat a protagonist? I hate how villified cats generally are in film and literature by artists who either simply don't understand cats or are pandering to the popularity of cat-hatred which negates both their value as artists and their understanding of life, humanity and the world at large. Watching Coraline, I was immeasurably gladdened to see a cat's qualities recognized truly.

Yes, I confess: The times when I felt my eyes getting misty were the times the cat was obviously standing as guardian between Coraline and the powers of darkness. I couldn't help but think gratefully and adoringly of Simon, who has stood watch over me through many three o'clock hours in the morning when the bad things were so much easier to believe and dawn seemed too far away to hold out for. One of the singularly greatest gifts God has ever blessed me with is that cat. If I'm absolutely goofy over him, it's because he has been an unfaltering lifeline through years of loneliness, uncertainty, fear and depression; and a continual source of laughter and joy through years of good things, learning and delightful surprises.

And he's just as goofy over me. I get this glowy feeling up under my ribcage because here is a creature who loves Saturdays and Sundays because I sleep in, and he loves to lie around in bed with me, all day if I want; here is a creature who is ecstatic to see me when I come home; here is a creature who can let me be by myself for hours, and then be perfectly content to be with me for hours; here is a creature who sometimes gazes at me as if the sun rises and sets on my shoulders, and as if I'm the most wonderful person on his planet (and this is not his I-want-my-supper look. That look is calculating and irritated). I have the absolute, unquestioning trust of this animal, and I've had it from the first, and my life is unthinkable without Simon.

Someday I'm going to kick back my heels in heaven with Christopher Smart and we can take up a good part of eternity expostulating on the miraculous natures and the elevated qualities of our cats, "for [they are] the servant[s] of the Living God duly and daily serving him."

formulating a Plan

Okay, so exciting things are beginning to happen. Of course I'm impatient to get there, but it's going to take a little while yet, and I'm working on this whole living-in-the-now business instead of dreaming hazily about the future while sitting still.

While I learn how to view myself objectively and positively, and begin to explore and untangle all sorts of ingrained habits rooted in old traumas and hurts, I have other plans too. I am more and more convinced that my calling is to the church universal -- that my job, my life's great duty, is to work to unite the divided denominations. Not to dispel denominations; that's not possible. People think differently, and there are many different theological perspectives as a result. But I see the church universal as the worldwide body of Christ -- and I see each denomination as one of the many parts of that body. Right now that body is dismembered, like the gang-raped and murdered concubine in Judges 19, whose husband cut her into twelve pieces and sent those pieces to every part of Israel. And separated from itself, divided against itself, this body is largely useless. Aren't we seeing those effects everywhere?

But if we were united, if love were the blood running through the body's veins, uniting, sustaining, think what we could do! Instead of wasting time fighting amongst ourselves, we could be turning to heal a suffering world.

I've been sitting around on my ass since I got back to Erie. Part of that is, in its way, understandable, particularly in this last month. But there are things to do, and I'm beginning to formulate a Plan.

Linnéa and I were talking on Sunday, about how blah and run-of-the-mill and insulated and sleepy and complacent and bureaucratic and corporate our town is in regard to Christ. Now I'm not one who goes about shouting for "revival"; but I do have a reformer's heart. So does Linnéa. We think that the way things are run doesn't work anymore, and it's time to do something new.

This is going to ruffle a lot of feathers; but we're not talking about talking about it. We're talking about doing it. Since we're not quite sure where God is going to have us start, we're going to start it simple and small: an open-invitation Bible study on Saturday mornings in the local coffeeshop. And we're not going to study someone else's study of the Bible. We're not going to have a middle man filtering God's Word. It's going to be we and the Scriptures.

That's a start. She and I and another friend, John, are the starters. And not one of us is quiet, and each one of us is impassioned, articulate and intelligent. I'm hoping to attract others by merit of those things alone.

Meanwhile I'm going to be meeting with the pastor of my parish and seeing what wisdom and light he can shed on the subject. I have a world of respect for Fr. David, and think he'll be very much on board (he's annoyed the bishop by interacting with the other churches in our town -- good sign).

And, for the middle-term (since turning my hometown on its head is the short-term, and doing something with writing and speaking and teaching to unite the church universal is the long-term), I'm looking at seminary. I need some kind of training for this (although there's no "niche" for the sort of thing I'm going to do), and most especially I want to learn ancient Greek and Hebrew, so that I'm equipped to read the Bible in its own languages. And this is perhaps hilarious, but I'm leaning toward a Baptist institution. Nobody knows the Bible like Baptists. Plus I'm generally comfortable holding an opposing viewpoint to the crowd, and I'm familiar with Baptist perspectives.

That's all subject to change, of course; but to seminary I plan to go for my MDiv. And I'm looking at the South -- I've never lived in the South, and Hillori is moving down thataway this fall, so she'll be there for a few years, and we've always planned to live in proximity to each other at some point in our lives. Location is subject to change, too, but I really feel a peace about this -- the kind of peace I haven't felt since my decision to attend Grove City my senior year of high school, and my decision to move to South Bend my senior year of college.

So I have a lot to do to prepare. But I feel like, for the first time in six years, I can catch a glimpse of the path ahead of me. Which is thrilling -- this journey is through wild country, and I get to see God "making a way in the desert / and streams in the wasteland."

words in shining armor

As a general rule, I hold video and computer games in contempt. (Sorry, all my gamer friends out there.) But as I surfed through all the free apps on my phone, I conceded to take a glance at the available games.

Oo. Tic Tac Toe. Chess!

Once upon a time I was great at chess. Sixth grade champion at my school. Made the boys crazy (with frustration only, sadly). My sister always beat me, which pissed me off; but she's good at strategy.

I knew I'd grown pretty bad at it, so when I turned on the app for the first time I set the difficulty level to low and prepared to face the AI.

And I learned something.

I suck at chess.

I mean SUCK. Of course it doesn't help that it's only 2-D, but that excuse only goes so far. The trouble is that I don't strategize at all. I sort of wing it, go with my gut -- which is no way to win at chess (although it's worked a few times). It's fun, but this morning the suckage level had reached epidemic proportions and I was starting to feel angry and a little dumb.

I turned off the app, blew out a long frustrated breath and stared at the ceiling for a second. Then I grinned, tapped the Hangman icon and proceeded to kick ass.

It's not even about having a broad vocabulary (though that doesn't hurt). It's more about knowing how words are constructed, and remembering all the latinate prefixes and suffixes. Some of the words I've gotten I don't even know (which is awesome).

So...nyah nyah nah nyah nyah, chess.

i am an oozing ball of hormones

Cindy overheard a woman saying this to her husband at a flea market on Saturday. I found it wonderfully appropriate.

This month the hormones are all generating rage. It's one of those PMS cycles where I'm angry, and delighted to be angry. I offered to make any collection calls that they wanted me to make at work, but fortunately for our clients, and unfortunately for my hormones, all our billpayers are being good.

I'm just kind of in the mood to be really evil. And since people generally excel at being stupid, which pisses me off faster than anything else, I'm going to have vats of temptation to swim through.

What I'll probably wind up doing in actuality is avoid looking at or talking to anyone, and hide out in my room until the mood passes.

But man, that's just going to be boring. I really hope that someone in the grocery store line is really rude to someone else, so that I can step in and say something. I want to be evil to evil people; that way I can tell myself I'm being horrible for the benefit of others, which transmogrifies the horrible to noble and makes me a hero instead of a bitch.

I really wish I had an easily accessible shooting range nearby. Dirty Harriet hasn't gotten any exercise in months and months and months, and she's as pissed off about it as I am.

learning to see

I hesitate to write about some of the specifics of my internal journey because they might sound a little silly. At the same time, however, they're true, and one of the reasons I keep notes about anxiety and depression -- aside from sharing a little of my reality with friends and curious or sympathetic (or voyeuristic) strangers -- is the hope that it will resonate with some people who live under the same black sun, and give others who don't a glimpse of what these maladies are like to the people who suffer from them (and give me plenty of raw material for a memoir).

In therapy this week as I related the start of my latest breakdown and the events surrounding it, I told Jeff, "I drove out to visit my sister -- I really like road trips, I like being alone in the car to think and sort things through without anything else distracting me, just some time to get away from everything, like a mini-retreat," and Jeff held up his hand and said, "That's the most real thing you've said so far: 'I like to be alone.' Let's talk about that."

("Let's talk about that," by the way, is sometimes one of the scariest phrases a psychologist can utter. I usually freeze into the oh-shit-I-was-treading-carefully-but-I'm-on-thin-ice-after-all posture because I know that means there's a problem but I don't know what it is and I don't want to keep talking at all because I feel like a criminal being read her rights: "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.")

So while I sat there and answered his questions carefully and worried while I did that maybe I'm some kind of sociopath if I like to be alone because human beings are social and maybe I'm not social, we dug a few layers deeper into a complex web of language, communication, self-expression and self-image.

I say "self-image" for lack of a better one-word term. What I mean by that is "my view of how others see me." Which is different in important ways from my view of myself. It came out that I like being alone partly because I don't think anyone will like me, and so a lot of my communication to others is tailored with incredible observancy to their actual and anticipated reactions (rendering said communication, in Jeff's word, "horseshit").

"Did you notice that?" Jeff asked at one point, interrupting me mid-sentence. "You started to say something, and the corner of my mouth turned down...and your eyes went right to the corner of my mouth and you instantly qualified what you were saying. When you're talking at me your eyes are constantly scanning my entire face. You're extremely observant. Why?"

I don't recall my exact answer. I learned early on that my performance counted in others' estimation more than my actual personhood. It didn't help that I was always a weird kid who could spend hours staring into a tree but lacked the social graces to flirt, and who preferred losing herself in books to playing sports or (especially) dancing. People have always made me nervous, and any kind of vulnerability is a big deal for me; I don't believe that people will like me if they really know me. That's the bottom line, really: I assume people won't like me. Every way in which I interact with people is, evidently, structured around that assumption.

But when I'm alone I like myself just fine. I like myself a lot. I love that I love indie music and quirky films and world cuisines and yerba mate; I like my writing, my singing voice, my cooking, my decorating style, my thoughts, my books, my company. I don't have to pretend much when I'm alone, and I can dance really badly and drift from room to room (when I think of being alone I mostly think of myself as I was alone in my apartment in South Bend; I still miss the Ivory Tower) singing mid-range harmonies to my indie music and burn candles and wear whatever (translate: very little) I want and be outrageously crazy about Simon and feel generally happy and carefree.

But somehow it all gets lost in translation when the language of being becomes the language of interacting with other human beings. Mostly I feel like nobody gets me, and I want to be understood. But I also confuse understanding and liking as synonymous when really they're not. People don't have to "get" me to like me, and the truth is that almost everybody likes me. I think one of my tasks is to accept that, and to discover why (because when someone likes me I'm always puzzled and surprised), so that I can actually appreciate myself whether I'm alone or with others.

Jeff has assigned me the task of expressing disagreement with people, which, in certain contexts, I meticulously avoid. He's teaching me to disagree firmly and yet calmly and cheerfully. In this way I'll learn to say things that are all-the-way real, and not in compromise.

Meanwhile, as if in affirmation of this astonishing notion that I'm likeable (really, every time someone expresses some kind of liking or concern for me, I'm always surprised and puzzled, wondering why), I've been getting a flood of communication over the last week from friends old and friends new, friends near and friends far away. And my life is blooming into plans for adventure and fun with some of these -- I may be more comfortable alone, but I really love being around people -- and taking on some shades of color instead of a long black stretch of grey. I'm consciously walking into social situations, and approaching conversations, with the assumption that people will like me. (It's a discipline, but it's much less worrisome than my habitual approach.)

Jeff told me, "You think no one likes you, kiddo, but let me tell you, after one session with you I care about you just as much as when you walked out my door after our last session all those years ago, and someone who has that kind of capacity to make someone care about her that much in so short a time..."

I don't remember what he said to close off that sentence; I was battling my instinctive internal response, which was, "I don't believe you." But as I cautiously absorbed that information, and started to reevaluate my interactions with a lot of different people, I realized that I, who am so intensely focused on always being right, am wrong in this area. (And the world didn't end.)

Actually it's really freeing. There's something about the me-ness of me that is likeable. Even my supervisor for my grading job -- a Christian who also understands my struggles with anxiety and depression, and let me tell you, folks, that is a rare and priceless gem -- whom I have kept updated, when I remembered, about this latest, and long, bad stretch, to explain to her my inactivity, has expressed huge amounts of encouragement and understanding, and I've never met the woman; we've had a few online training sessions and she and I have emailed back and forth with student exams.

So maybe I find all this confusing as hell, and kind of a lot to absorb; I know it's going to take a lot of time as I untangle this great big snarl of wrong assumptions and follow the main thread to its source; but it's confusing as hell and a lot to absorb in a nice way. It's funny, usually in therapy you discover all these bad things you've been suppressing and have to deal with, but in this case I'm discovering a really good thing I've been suppressing and now need to learn to live in.

It'll all be better. I don't know if I'll ever be really free of this thing (what was that thorn in Paul's side which he pleaded three times for God to take away from him, and God said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"?), but, as Carol, my fellow suffering believer, wrote to me, "Don’t worry about 'beating this thing.' Instead of fighting against it to do the 'normal' things, just be with God in the midst of it. He isn’t punishing you with depression, though He is allowing you to be in that state. Let Him take care of the doing and wait on Him with whatever curiosity you can muster."

Extraordinarily wise advice. And, as God has been reminding me repeatedly lately, the people who served Him most powerfully, from Genesis to Revelation, weren't usually the people who had it all together. A lot of times they were wrecks, drunkards, crazies, murderers, adulterers, depressives (I love you, Jeremiah), liars, tricksters, cowards, idiots, grudge-bearers, idolators, womanizers, prostitutes, doubters and deniers. And sometimes these people were in the midst of their imperfections when God called them. Not everyone was Daniel or Joshua or John. They were nearly always stunningly human, and that didn't matter to God ("for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust").

So I keep remembering that "my times are in your hands," and that God has said, "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten," and that however He does that will probably surprise me. And most importantly, I don't have to be perfect to be loved by, or useful to, God. Perhaps this affliction is the thing that keeps me remembering my humanity, and makes me dependent on God -- and on people -- where I would fight against that dependency. Perhaps this is the thing that keeps me connected to those who suffer where I might not understand. Or maybe I will be healed of it completely one day after all. But wherever I am with depression and anxiety, whether in the depths of the ocean or resting on high ground, I'm with God.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:7-12

Which, really, is all that matters.

seek I'll find it all

Seems fine though it ain't, no no no no

Seems fine though it ain't, no

I've gotta find me a way to flow

Deep in the heart I'll seek I'll find it all

~The Concretes

This is a delightful little song I discovered upon popping in a mix at work (rainy days seem to demand some kind of mix, though I haven't made any for myself in years -- I really wanted the Garden State soundtrack but I left it in another CD wallet) created long ago by the boy who, metaphorically, taught me to see music in color.

This particular piece is just weird enough to escape being truly pop, and cheerful enough to escape being depressing. Bouncy and full of a lighthearted not-quite-cynicism, it expresses that weird hope that won't be swallowed but fights its way to the surface of the soul. Even when the waters try to keep it down, it slips out of the depression's grasp and bursts to the top again. Have you ever tried to keep one of those floatie noodles underwater in a swimming pool? You can't do it for long. I hate to be trite and say, "Hope floats," but it does. Not in a limp, feathery way either; in a fierce, muscular, determined way. It's the thing that yanks against the depression's dragging grasp, that by its very nature will not be swamped, and can carry the weight of a struggling swimmer and still remain buoyant.

On some of my very worst days I will find myself, for no reason, smiling and glad and cheerful, and I know that the clouds are pressing all around, but they don’t, in that moment, matter. In that moment, I am, though nothing has changed, transcendent -- free.

And in that moment, and in the others surrounding it, I’ll play happy little sad-sweet songs like these, because I know, and my job is, and I’m glad that, “Deep in the heart I’ll seek I’ll find it all.”

I'm going to win.

ow

How can a few air bubbles inside one's intestinal tract hurt so much?
It's ridiculous. I had a good and productive day, except for the
significant drawback of spending it doubled over.

Sent from my iPhone

table scraps

I don't really want to write today, but the yawning emptiness on my blog bothers me too, so I'm in something of a dilemma.

What can I tell you? I want to tell you that everything is great, and everything probably is, but everything doesn't feel great, except in small momentary flashes that buoy me up enough to catch my breath and grin at the sun before I "slide back down to the bottom" and look at a world where "all the color drains out of the frame."

I'm at the easily-moved-to-tears stage of whatever this cycle is -- it's been a few years since anxiety compounded the depression (wheeee), so I'm remembering hazily how the last time went and trying to compare my own notes. Hard to do, really, when I'm tipping my head back to dam in the tears a lot of the time. I'm generally pretty self-controlled about crying -- the only places I really allow myself the luxury are church and the car -- but the dam is leaky and I only have so many fingers. So this weekend I cried through the trailer of Where the Wild Things Are (I am ecstatic that they're making this wonderful book into a movie. I knew I loved the movie before I even knew what it was, when I saw the sad, luminous eyes of the lonely, imaginative, neglected and ostracized little boy staring at his parents from around a doorjamb, watching them absorbed in their own conversation without noticing him; and then the screen flashed to him running, and then everything went to silhouette and that costume appeared -- the tail, and the claws, and the crown, and the sceptre -- and I gripped Leigh Ann's arm and whisper-shouted, "It's Where the Wild Things Are!" and burst into tears). I cried through Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And Sunday in church I cried all through the Mass, because six rows ahead of me the cutest baby boy I have ever seen, bar none, was bouncing in his father's arms and staring around him and smiling at everyone and everything, and he was obviously deeply loved, and beautiful, and I'm not perfect but I'm going to be a great mom.

Sometimes I think part of the depression is akin to the infection surrounding an ingrown hair. There's no outlet for all this love that I'm not only capable of giving, but have, and it turns in on itself and goes sour. So I have to figure out how to put it to other uses; and to do that I have to figure out how to view myself properly, with love, and hopefully how to trust, because I don't.

Good lessons. But difficult ones, too, and my head aches, and I'm tired.

At least my room is really clean. And my toenails have never been so carefully maintained. (One of these days I'm going to compile a Tips for Coping list.)

On a tangential aside, I was thinking the other day about something Leigh Ann pointed out about our generation -- that we're pretty pluralist, even a lot of the evangelicals -- and I thought that it's not as naive and silly a position as others might think. We live in a globalized culture now, where many different perspectives must learn to coexist, or destroy everything. In the Cold War only a few countries had nuclear weapons; now dozens have them, from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds (whereas in the Cold War it was mostly the West vs. the West), and misunderstandings can lead to a lot of death. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take a stand for what we believe in most deeply -- au contraire -- but I think people our age understand the tenuous nature of peace, and in emphasizing the necessity of accepting difference, we're doing what we can to add a little mortar between the bricks.

At the same time I don't think we have any faith that the peace will hold, and we're waiting for all hell to break loose. Oddly -- or not oddly at all -- I think that moment when everything falls apart is what our generation is looking to, to give our lives, and the world, some kind of meaning.

i needed this

It was faith that made Abraham accept the promise that all nations of the earth should be blessed in his seed. Time went by, the possibility was still there, and Abraham had faith; time went by, it became unlikely, and Abraham had faith. There was once another who held out an expectation. Time went by, the evening drew near, he was not so pitiful as to forget his expectation; therefore he too should not be forgotten. Then he sorrowed, and the sorrow did not deceive him as life had done; it did all it could for him and in the sweetness of sorrow he possessed his disappointed expectation. It is human to sorrow with the sorrower, but greater to have faith and more blessed to behold the believer. From Abraham we have no song of sorrow. As time went by he did not mournfully count the days, he did not cast suspicious glances at Sarah, fearing she was growing old; he did not stay the march of the sun, so that Sarah should not grow old and with her his expectation; he did not soothingly sing to Sarah his mournful lay. Abraham became old and Sarah was mocked in the land, and still he was God's chosen and heir to the promise that in his seed all nations of the earth would be blessed. Would it not be better, then, were he not God's chosen? What is it to be God's chosen? Is it to be denied in youth one's youthful desire in order to have it fulfilled in great travail in old age? But Abraham believed and held firm to the promise. Had Abraham wavered he would have renounced it. He would have said to God: 'So perhaps after all it is not your will that it should happen; then I will give up my desire, it was my only desire, my blessed joy. My soul is upright, I bear no secret grudge because you refused it.' He would not have been forgotten, he would have saved many by his example, yet he would not have become the father of faith; for it is great to give up one's desire, but greater to stick to it after having given it up; it is great to grasp hold of the eternal but greater to stick to the temporal after having given it up. But then came the fullness of time. Had Abraham not had faith, then Sarah would surely have died of sorrow, and Abraham, dull with grief, instead of understanding the fulfilment, would have smiled at it as at a youthful dream. But Abraham believed, and therefore he was young; for he who always hopes for the best becomes old, deceived by life, and he who is always prepared for the worst becomes old prematurely; but he who has faith, retains eternal youth. All praise then to that tale! For Sarah, though stricken in years, was young enough to covet the pleasure of motherhood; and Abraham, though grey of head, was young enough to want to be a father. Outwardly the wonder of faith is in Abraham and Sarah's being young enough for it to happen according to their expectations; in a deeper sense the wonder of faith lies in Abraham and Sarah's being young enough to wish, and in faith's having preserved their wish and through it their youthfulness. He accepted the fulfilment of the promise, he accepted it in faith, and it happened according to expectation and according to faith; for Moses struck the rock with his rod but he did not believe.


~Søren Kierkegaard, from Fear and Trembling

a little note so you know i'm not dead

I would like to blog. I've been spinning a few ideas around, but I'm
really, really tired, and extremely busy (one of the other antidotes
to bad stretches of anxiety/depression: constant activity, constant
company, constant distraction), so this little dashes scribble on my
way out the door will have to suffice.

Also, I'm emailing this to my blog from my new iPhone -- I did say
constant distraction, right? -- and may I just say that I'm in love?
This is the best gadgety gizmo I've ever allowed myself. iHeart my
iPhone.

silver lining

Well, I'll say this for a prolonged period of heightened anxiety (the really ugly side of depression): It makes road rage a lot more fun.

I come from a family of highway hotheads -- Dad's a cop and Mom's Scots-Irish, so my sister and I didn't have a prayer. So while we take care not to drive recklessly, we certainly can all be classified as aggressive. (I maintain that the aggressive drivers aren't the ones that cause the accidents; the stupid drivers do. I have no statistics to back this up, but I staunchly stick to my position.)

On an ordinary day I do a pretty good dance. I know all the tricks on my route to work -- the places where two lanes turn to one after a stoplight, giving me extra manuevering room to get around slow drivers; the speed traps; the timing of the traffic lights. All of these are important strategic tools, like chess pieces, which I keep in the wings for the moments when they can augment my skillful lane changing, positive/negative acceleration, intimate knowledge of my car's capabilities and instinct for spacial relationships and relative speeds.

I like to drive fast. I like to outmaneuver and outstrategize the other drivers on the road -- particularly because most of the drivers on the road are really, really bad. It's not road rage so much as road competition. I have places to go, and I want to get there first. When another driver's antics summon a flare-up of temper, I seldom yell; more often I narrow my eyes, mutter something obscene and bide my time, waiting for the moment to blaze around them, demonstrate my superiority and clear the road ahead of me. I'm not confrontational by nature, so these moments of executing driving maneuvers with skill and temper give me huge rushes of adrenaline, which I also enjoy.

(It's a good thing I'm bound by law and morality, though. I said to Meg the other week, as I finally was able to pass someone who'd been boxing me in at ridiculously slow speeds for miles, "Do you ever have the really strong urge to clip someone's rear axle as you pass them, just because they're stupid?" At which point she laughed and said, "Sarah, if it were legal, you'd have grenade launchers mounted on your car and a PA system to insult them before you blew them up." "Well...I'd probably settle for a machine gun," I said.)

The trouble with the adrenaline is that when I'm under a long stretch of anxiety, as I have been these last two and a half weeks, it's pretty much coursing through me at all times. With my fight-or-flight response thrumming in high gear all day, the extra surges that come from successful acts of daring on the highway burn through my blood vessels like acid.

But at least it's productive. The rest of the day I spend fidgeting at my desk, keyed up and unable to concentrate while my eyes dart all over the place instinctively looking for danger, when the danger is all in my head and I can't do anything about it. At least while I'm driving I'm entirely focused on what I'm doing, and what I'm doing carries tangible significance, even if it's only cutting five minutes out of my drive time or getting around that cigar-chewing asshole who wouldn't let me pass him for three miles.

Every night finds me exhausted from all the chemicals going haywire in my system (the temporary medications as well as the biochemical horrors); but I can't relax enough to sleep; my nights are more like a succession of really worthless two- or three-hour naps, since my dreams are so bizarre and disturbing it's almost better to stay awake. This anxiety crap is hell on the restfulness of life, and coffee is not my friend, though I still drink it by the pot (faithful to the last). And for some reason I'm thirsty like the Sahara Desert all the time.

But at least driving is more fun.

Skin Prayer

My God, beneath my quiet face all is
a formless emptiness. The darkened horde
of pulsions cast upon the deep like mist
irrupt the Spirit’s generative word
and boil in my skin. My cyclic search
for their expression drives me to this mirror
to force with practiced fingernails the purge
of turbulent infection from the pores.
What language fails to speak I score in scars
of living hieroglyphs, their bloodless flush
to bear, with the slow burn of aging stars,
a witness of resistance to the crush
of void: a testament of genesis
which, lacking word, must cry to You in flesh.

i blame the hormones

My sister and I spent some time today planning whom we'd take with us on the Ark we're going to have to build this weekend to escape the floodwaters pouring down across the state.

After about ten seconds we realized that the boat won't need to be very large.

today's grammar lesson

"Everyday" is an adjective. "Every day" is an adverbial phrase.

This is one of those subtle distinctions the confusion of which I find annoying. It's not like I look at one of the many instances where people screw it up and think, "They used the adjective instead of the adverb." No; with grammar I can tell you the rules when I think about them (thanks to a peerless and rigorous grammatical education by the world's best high school English teacher, Patricia Callan), but my knowledge of those rules is generally more instinctive. I look at something and know it's wrong.

How do I know this? How is my grammatical knowledge so extensive? Where do I get off being a grammar jerk and judging people based on the quality of their writing? What makes me an expert?

I read.

That's it. That's the answer. I read. And I have always read. A well-rounded education starts with reading, and with parents who encourage reading. My mom read to me when I was still curled up and developing in utero. I was a little fishlike thing with a tail and already absorbing words. And then growing up I grabbed up every book I could get my hands on. I still learn new words and new rules by reading. That's where the basis of my education lies. I had a fabulous formal education; don't get me wrong. But that formal education wouldn't have meant much if I hadn't already been an avid, voracious, insatiable reader.

So it irks me when people excuse themselves about not being "good at" grammar, as if well-developed grammatical skills just flower up in a person like magical ability in the world of Harry Potter. You're not Muggles and I wasn't offered something exclusive and secret, some gnosis that eludes most of the rest of humanity. Grammar's not an unbreakable code. I didn't go to school for it. Really. I went to school to read. My last grammar course was my freshman year in high school. These are rules you absorb just by reading, like you absorb the laws of physics just by walking around in the world. Anyone can learn it. Maybe I have a gift for retention, but these rules aren't that difficult to learn. (So if your reason is that you don't learn because you don't care, that's the answer I'd rather hear. I'll still be pissed, but for an entirely different reason -- and the argument will be much more fun).

Okay, end tangent. Return to beginning point of post.

"Everyday" is an adjective because it answers the question "what kind?" It describes a thing. Take this sentence: "Her grammatical rants are an everyday occurrence." What kind of occurrence are her grammatical rants? They're an everyday occurrence.

"Every day" is an adverbial phrase because it answers the question "when?" or "to what extent?" (Other adverbial questions: "where?" "how?" "under what conditions?" and "why?") It describes an action. Take this sentence: "She rants about some new grammatical error every day." When or to what extent (in other words, how often) does she rant about some new grammatical error? She rants every day.

Yes, it's weird, especially when everywhere, someday and yesterday are where and when words. I can make some sense out of it, but I lack the grammatical lingua franca to make it sound anything but thoroughly confusing.

But I can assure you that the rule is sound, however arbitrary, and that that's just the way it goes. "Everyday": adjective. "Every day": adverbial phrase.

Hm. We understand about gravity because when we fall down we hurt ourselves. Maybe people would be better at grammar if the consequences of screwing it up were attended by pain.