Desolation, harmony

Another really bad day, the second in less than a week.

This morning was fine. We met Robyn at Moon Bean for coffee, then I drove Marian home. As I was backing out of the driveway, Brenna came running down the street from school, so I had a chance to hug her and say, "I love you."

It had started—a strangely unaccountable tiredness—before I dropped Marian off, but depression hit in full force once I was alone in the car. Clinically, depression can only be applied to a feeling that lasts two weeks, but how else do I explain going from normal to feeling like death in less than an hour, with no provocation? I became overwhelmed by the disconnection of distance in my relationships generally, on LiveJournal in particular. This sense of isolation, the bane of my existence, washed over like an ocean. I couldn't imagine anything to do but withdraw from life to tend the giant wound, as if being alone could heal the bitterness of being alone.

The sky was heavy, overcast. It drew down like a silk screen, watercolour grey smudging into naked forests and pale fields. From an ephemeral pond, a flock of gulls rose shining dimly against the curtain of dusk. Where were they bound? How did they all know to take off together? Gulls lack the burden of personal volition. If they were people, one or two would remain sitting stubbornly on the edge of mudflats, facing deepening shadows alone. My mental darkness became so intense it actually affected my vision and I thought night had fallen suddenly, until I noticed the curve of distant hillsides again. Physical night came more slowly.

I played The Memory of Trees. It's practically the only album I can stand when I feel that depressed. It isn't even my favourite Enya disk, but the others all have one track or another that irritates me.

I remembered how working with Denise and a new volunteer at the library last Tuesday (the previous bad day) lifted my spirits. People. I couldn't call anyone from the roadside, and the unbearable drive dragged interminably, two hours ahead of me. Frankly, had I been home I wouldn't have felt like calling anyone.

I remembered last Tuesday, after I admitted how I was feeling and wanted to work quietly by myself, Denise kept asking for help with a series of small, inconsequential decisions. It annoyed me at the time as I was trying to knit, but undoubtedly her mild intrusions shifted my focus away from the abyss. Later, I realized she had done so deliberately.

While driving alone, it's practically impossible to distract one's self, but I had one shot in my arsenal: the rehearsal CDs for the Rainbow Chorus. After Enya finished, I put one of them in and started to sing along.

Half an hour later I felt fine.

What happened there? I can tell when my brain chemistry is off, and this was one of those times. It's not cognitive, not a thing one can talk one's self out of. The power of positive thinking against a depletion of serotonin or whatever, is just a load of crap. But singing hit a reset button somewhere, rebooted my brain, restored harmony. I used to believe I had a blocked throat chakra, affecting my lack of willpower. Nowadays I'm skeptical about that. Still, it's the only symbol I have to explain how I healed myself today. Unblocking. Weeping can do it, too.

I returned to Guelph, voted in the municipal election, and arrived home with a sense of peace and comfort. I don't imagine I'm out of the woods with this dark season, but it doesn't hurt to have another tool against unfocused despair.

We saw these stones in Kensington Market this morning.