The Furious Spinner

I'm sitting at my desk staring out at a white, white world. There's probably only about an inch of snow, but it is covering everything the way heavy wet snow does. They've closed I-84, the main road across the river, probably because of freezing rain. There is no wind, and it looks kind of peaceful, except the snow is falling so fast. I can't see anything beyond the church across the road.

I'm listening to Annie Lennox. I had decided since I have chronic depression and am prone to morbid thoughts that I should really start listening to more cheerful music. Hasn't happened yet. Although I did slap my hand when I started to pull out my Robert Johnson blues collection. (Yes, but his songs are soooo beautiful. They've got a beat and you can cry to them.)

So it's been quite a week. You? Shall I retrace my steps? We got back from AZ safe and sound. (Thank you, thank you.) Soon after we got back, Mario got sick. I have been off my program (no meditation, eating crappy, not sleeping), so I definitely didn't have my groove back yet. So my obsessive worrying lassoed me right down to the ground. By the second night of Mario's illness, I couldn't sleep at all. I kept thinking of my mom having what they thought was a cold or flu and then the next day she was dead and I was motherless. I'd creep upstairs, sneak into our room, and listen for Mario's breathing. Then when he got a fever, I was just crazy. It's not a rational thing. It's as though my body is inhabited by a freaking crazy person. The me that is me says, "But a fever is good. It will burn off the virus." The crazy person says, "Unless it goes up and up and then fries his brain and he's dead, dead, dead, and it's all because you didn't do this, that, or the other." One night I thought I would just go insane. Any of you who have had anxiety or obsessive worrying know that it really does feel crazy. That's an understatement. It is utterly debilitating. I wanted to run, run, run away. But I can't run away from my own brain.

So I've just got to get my brain back on track. Make new neural pathways.

Mario is on the road to recovery, knock wood. In the meantime, my body has been ravaged with adrenaline so my muscles ache, I feel like I'm on speed, and I've gotten an incredible amount of work done. (Anxiety peppered with mania can do that.)

I am so behind in my work that it's difficult to imagine I'll ever get through it. But that's part of the pathology. Molehills become freaking mountain ranges. Entire continents of mountains.

I'll get the work done. Or I won't, and it won't be the end of the world.

I can't tell you how many baths I've had to try to relax. My skin feels like it's falling off. I think I keep trying to get back to the Old Sea. After my last bath an hour or so ago, I put on Beau Jacques and then Santana and I danced around the house skyclad. (Or would that be ceiling-clad?) I recommend dancing for depression, for anxiety, for whatever ails ya. And dancing sans clothes is even better. It felt so decadent. Outside it is butt-freezing-off cold, and I'm dancing around as though it's the middle of August. Love, love, love it. It all feels better without clothes, as many women of my age understand. Easier than constantly pulling off and putting on layers. (I would find it all almost entertaining if I could concentrate on Mario's face when all of a sudden I have to pull off most of what I'm wearing—in a hurry, in the middle of whatever is going on. He always looks so perplexed and surprised. He's trying to talk or something and I'm saying, "omigod, omigod, omigod, GET THESE THINGS OFF OF ME!") I was in the co-op the other day and I took off a pair of pants. Mario looked at me. "What?" I said. "Am I embarrassing you?" He laughed. "No, not a bit."

Okay, now I'll add that I actually had on two pair of pants, so when I removed one, I still had one to go.

I had on two pairs because it was butt-freezing-off cold. Still is.

Anyway, I have gotten some writing work done. I started The Blue Tail. I came up with the characters and plots while I was in Arizona. This week I wrote about forty pages. And I rewrote them. I'm crossing my fingers. My last few novels have fallen apart in so many unpleasant and depressing ways. I mean, hell, if I can't write, what am I going to do?

I talked to my father yesterday. Whenever he talks about going home again, alone, he can't speak. He loses his voice. Just like he lost my mother. Therein lies the risk of loving, I suppose: losing. So often when I think of my mother now, I see her as I last saw her: in that damn casket. And that just pisses me off. Dead she looked nothing like my mother. Only her hands. Only her hands. My father took off her wedding ring and kept it. My sister took off her family ring, the one with all our birthstones in it that we got her when we were children.

Only her hands.

Oh. It's cold in this house. I want to take another bath.

Talked to my youngest sister today. After I told her what had been going on in my life, she said, "I think AA would do you a lot of good." I laughed. "But I don't drink." She's right, though. I could use a place where I could go to talk about what is truly happening in my life, a place where I could say my deepest darkest thoughts, a place where people would listen to me and I could listen to them.

It's called a freaking community!

And I'm still looking.

"Everyone has a broken heart...Remember this." (Ahhh, Annie. I gotta give you up.)

What else did I do this week besides have several nervous breakdowns? I started a novel. I outlined said novel. (My outlines really consist of summarized plot points with estimates of how many pages each "point" will take.) I did a plot synopsis of another maybe-novel. In my new novel I wrote a difficult scene where the main character is abused by her boyfriend. I based it on something that happened to me when I was in high school. I don't write about myself in my fiction (I've got the blog for that: me, me, and moi), but I do use my own experiences as fodder, of course.

Anyway, when I was in the last year of high school, I got too drunk at a party (wasn't something I did often) and I went up to my ex-boyfriend who was at the party and somehow we ended up walking out into the woods. Can't remember what I said or he said. As we were walking I got really dizzy and said I couldn't walk, so he picked me up and carried me. That was even worse. So I made him put me down. He dropped me on the ground, and when I wouldn't get up, he started kicking me all over. (I believe he was drunk, too.) I wanted to get up, but I couldn't move. It was very strange. He finally left me there alone in the dark in the woods. I couldn't move, but I could hear really really well. I couldn't speak either. I thought I was going to die there. Somehow, my girlfriends found me and took me home. The next day I was bruised and sore all over, as well as hung over. The worse part was that I called my ex-boyfriend and apologized for making him mad. Even back then, I was a feminist (born one). I always stood up for myself and didn't let anyone push me around. Yet I called and apologized to him. It was one of the most shameful moments of my life.

We got back together, that boy and me, by the way. Almost got married. Fortunately we figured out we would have killed one another. About fifteen years ago I went home and asked for an apology from him for beating me up. He gave it. We still stay in touch. So I put a scene similar to what happened to me in the book, only she isn't me and the boy isn't him. We are all better than our worst moments. I'm glad I'm not a teenager now. It's gotta be rough. Maybe that's why I write stories for them. I needed help getting through those years, and if I can write something which will help, entertain, inspire, or amuse someone trying to ride the waves and not drown, I'm willing.

Let me take a moment for this aside. If you are an adult and you're not reading young adult novels, you are missing some great reads. I wish they'd call them something else, really, besides young adult novels. There is lots of dreck out there, just like there is dreck in "adult" fiction, but there are some truly beautiful, passionate stories in teen fiction. When I write my young adult novels, they're not any different from my adult novels except for two things. One: the main character is a teenager. Two: they're shorter. (Not the characters, the length of the book.) That's it. Coyote Cowgirl could very well be a young adult novel except the protagonist was in her early twenties. (Hey, that's a young adult.) Now those of you who have read Gaia Websters and The Jigsaw Woman might be saying, "What about all that sexual content in your novels?" That was then. I haven't put a lot of sexual content in my recent adult novels. Mostly because I find it really difficult to write sexual scenes. It's sort of like writing about someone eating. How many ways can you talk about your characters dipping their forks in their food and then putting the food in their mouth? You know? And actually, I think every teenager should read The Jigsaw Woman, sexual content or not. War vets relate to it; teenagers will, too.

Okay.

It's getting dark. The snow is getting bigger, coming down even faster. Is it turning to rain? I had more to say, but I think I've lost the thread. I can only imagine how you feel.

I may walk down to the library.

I wanted to tell you that the other night I drove to Hood River to pick up some groceries while Mario was ill. Really it was just an excuse to move, move, move. If I can walk, I always feel better, but it was too cold. (The cold air affects my breathing.) So being in a car is the next best thing. I kissed my sweetheart goodbye and I drove toward Hood River. It was one of those absolutely gorgeous full moon winter nights. The sky was dark dark deep blue. The stars were shaking from cold. And the moon, ah, what can I say about the moon? She was a shining Eucharist wafer in the sky. An edible pearl. The eye of night watching over me. It was light enough in the blue black darkness that I could see the snow-covered gorge cliffs all around me and even Hamilton Mountain on the Washington side, in the distance, looking like some old being holding out his snow-covered arms, saying, "here I am, darlin'!" And in those quiet moments as the car followed the serpentine curves of the river and the road, I was still and full of love, love, love. Fear became just a moment I breathed out long ago.

Wish you could have been there.

May You Dance in Beauty, Babies, Dance in Beauty!

Labels: depression, grief, The Blue Tail, writing

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.