Currie's Gratitude 19 December 2014

I looked hard out the window and understood suddenly that what I saw was full of color. A watercolor wash of summer light lay on the Catalina Mountains. The end of a depression is that clear: it’s as if you have been living underwater, but never realized it until you came up for air.   [Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams]

It annoys some people to talk about “mental illness.” I don’t know exactly why this is, and most of the time when I run into this I simply observe and “take in” whatever I take in. I’m learning a lot this way, actually, and I’m hard-pressed to feel old shame lurking inside me anymore.

Cancer has brought on several depressions that I’ve responded to by NOT staying in the “underwater” too long. Or at all.  And Now, too, I know my “signs” and accept this facet of myself.

I am seeing things more clearly, too, despite this vision whack-a-doodleness that makes each word I type a filmy cloud on the screen. Oftentimes depression makes my windshield streaky, but these days the view is clear, even when it’s cloudy.

She kept swimming out into life because she hadn't yet found a rock to stand on.   [Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams]

Sometimes it really is so simple WHY we DO what we DO.

I love you, Currie