I was set;
had the flyer marked,
which events and where,
all within walking distance once parked.
I’d set my alarm,
then canceled one minute early,
overwhelmed by baseless fears
I thought I’d set aside.
Setting my sights on next year,
fifth year running.
dVerse Quadrille #89 – Are you set? The challenge: write a poem of exactly 44 words, and use the word “set” within the poem.
Today is National Voter Registration Day in the US. Are you registered?
To check your voter registration, go to https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote . There you can “learn if you’re eligible to vote, how to register, check, or change your information,” and find the deadline to register to vote in your state.
Elections have consequences. Have your say in the nation’s future!
He is old, balding and bespectacled.
A Freudian slip of a man in a sweater vest
sitting across from me.
“I’m going to show you some white cards with black ink blots,” he says,
“and I want you to tell me what you see.”
Rorschach? Really? How cliché.
I say nothing. Soon enough I’ll be back on the ward
where everything is white.
Black ink blots seem downright festive at this point.
He holds up the first card expectantly.
“A bat,” I say.
Second card.
“Two bats.”
We continue thusly, well past either of our
enthusiasm for the task.
What does he make of all the bats I see?
Likely thinks I’m bat-shit crazy.
But really, I’m just reminded of my ramshackle apartment
and how bats fly in at night through the open window.
It’s happened more than once. More than twice.
Hence, I’m seeing bats. Ink bats.
He never asks what’s up with all the bats.
By the time he displays the last card, it’s painfully obvious:
at least one of us is not playing with a full deck.
I am given no diagnosis, no analysis,
no Rorschach cheat sheet to explain
the symbolism of bats.
I’m just returned to the white-walled ward,
where I will sleep that night in a hospital bed
and dream of ink blots flying away
through an open window.
dVerse Tuesday Poetics: Madness — “For this Poetics Challenge, write in the 1st or 3rd person of your own experiences (real or imagined) or your witnessing mental health issues.”
[Flashback #4 is my re-posting from a blog I wrote several years ago about my struggles with depression. My purpose in revisiting the “old” me is to remind myself and any others who care to read, to “claim the positive energy that is available to each of us for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.”]
This is a post from July 19, 2012:
“Things are only impossible until they’re not.”
~ Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
I came across a website the other day, DepressionTribe, which is a community site for people who are affected by depression. The philosophy of the site is that “individuals become empowered to help themselves and others when they feel a part of something larger.” The site allows members to create profile pages and share stories, photos, videos, music and artwork; to chat, participate in groups, and leave comments; and provides a venue for creating personal blogs. I haven’t poked around the site enough to make a recommendation, but it looks interesting.
While reading some of the members’ posts on the site, I was reminded of how destructive depression can be. I didn’t think I would ever need to be reminded, since I was living it day in and day out for so long. But reading about the hopelessness, the fear, the frustration and the hurt made me realize how fortunate I am to be experiencing a reprieve right now. I am riding a wave at present, enjoying life and appreciating all that I have been blessed with. I’ve come through to the other side. I have survived. Again.
My experience is that depression is a cyclical thing in my life. While I try not to dwell on it, I do not think I have seen the last of it. There has been a shift for me, though. I am choosing to savor my current contentment without constantly looking over my shoulder and wondering when I will be hit by despair once again. I am living life in the moment for a change. And I am continuing to make gains in physical and mental health that I hope will help me down the road when the wave crashes again. Maybe I won’t fall so far next time, maybe I won’t stay down so long. Maybe I’ll be able to remember that I was healthy and happy not so long ago and that will give me more strength or more hope for seeing it through yet again.
Life isn’t perfect right now. There’s that whole nagging issue of having no clue as to how I am going to make it financially in the future. But otherwise, things are better than I thought I could ever expect. I am reminded of the four minute mile. People used to think that running a mile in under four minutes was a physical impossibility for humans. Runners came close to completing the mile run in that amount of time, but no one could break through that four minute barrier.
In May of 1954, runner Roger Bannister did the impossible. He completed the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, disproving the notion that it couldn’t be done. And soon after, other runners began beating the four minute mile as well. What had seemed to be a physical barrier had perhaps been more of a psychological barrier instead.
When we’re depressed, it sometimes seems impossible that we will ever be happy, that life will ever be worthwhile. I have proven to myself that that does not have to be the case. We all have different circumstances, of course, and some of us have greater burdens to overcome than others, but a better life is possible if we don’t give up.
The barrier has been broken for me, and I am doing everything I can to ingrain that into my mind. The theme from Rocky is running through my head, and I feel all inspired to go running now. But I think I’ll settle for a walk to the mailbox.
One barrier at a time.
Maggie
The spider works quickly to get the larger insect wrapped within its web. The insect doesn’t struggle; it may be dead. But the web is in tatters and shakes violently every time the spider moves. I watch the action, hoping the spider secures its hard-won meal before the web gives out.
Progress is slow, and my attention wavers. When I check back, the spider is sitting motionless in its sparse web, and the big catch-of-the-day is nowhere in sight. Has it fallen from the web? After all the spider’s hard work? I am compelled to make it right, find the bug. Maybe I can stick it back on the web somehow.
I part the plants beneath the spider’s web, and sure enough, there it is. Still wrapped in webbing. Still dead. But… moving? Two small ants have taken a hold of the hapless bug and are hauling it off as their own pre-wrapped prize. I am too late. Nature has already made it right.
nature’s web pulled taught
broken strands and gaping holes
mend on, weavers, mend
In those moments between asleep and awake,
with dreams still sweet upon our tongues,
their fragrance lingering in our minds,
that is the time to decide if we are
dreaming awake or dreaming asleep,
and whether we want to keep our dreams,
make them manifest in our awakening,
or let them drift away unchosen.
If we awaken from – or into –
a nightmare, we are left with
the same choices.
We must choose well, especially with
those dreams that come
when we are awake.
Day 29 of NaPoWriMo. The prompt, edited for succinctness:
For poet William Wordsworth, a poem was the calm after the storm – an opportunity to remember and summon up emotion, but at a time and place that allowed the poet to calmly review, direct and control those feelings. A somewhat similar concept is expressed through the tradition of philosophically-inclined poems explicitly labeled as “meditations,” …
Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully.
Not completely on prompt, but this is what I came up with:
When finding oneself in the disposition of
being where one does not belong, or perhaps of
not belonging where one finds oneself,
it might be of consequence for one to ponder
how that circumstance came to be.
If, for example, one is where one does not belong
due to a displacement of some nature, one might enquire as to
what compulsion or energy caused such an event,
and whether it is a permanent condition, or whether
one might best prepare for subsequent supplantations.
Alternatively, if one does not belong where
one finds oneself, one may have merely been misplaced,
and may therefore be inclined to wonder
what careless entity committed such a dismissive act,
and whether one might perchance some day
in some manner attain one’s proper placement.
It is imperative, however, that one never allow
one’s emotions to surface and escape their
carefully fabricated confines,
lest one come to realize that the
feeling of not belonging where one finds oneself
is – in fact — excruciatingly painful.
Flashback #3 in my re-posting from a blog I wrote several years ago about my struggles with depression.
My purpose in revisiting the “old” me is to remind myself and any others who care to read, to:
claim the positive energy that is available to each of us for our own benefit and for the benefit of others.
This is a post from July 14, 2012:
One of the difficulties when trying to work one’s way out of a deep depression is facing the conundrum: We don’t feel up to doing the things that are going to make us feel up to doing things. At the depths of depression, it might become a challenge even to get out of bed, let alone actually take part in any meaningful activity.
During my various stints in intensive behavioral health outpatient treatment programs (which I prefer to just call “brain school”), I was taught a lot of things about dealing with depression. Some of those things I even remember. Then again, some things I remember probably weren’t really the things they were trying to teach me. So take what I say I learned with a grain of salt.
One thing I learned about doing the work I need to do to get better is that if I don’t think I can do something, or don’t feel I can do it, or don’t believe I can do it, that’s the time to do it anyway.
Do what I just said I can’t do? In a word, yes. Maybe I’m telling myself that I can’t get out of bed and face the day. But if my body is physically capable of lifting itself out of the bed, then indeed I can get up. If I survived the challenges of yesterday, chances are I can survive today, too. No matter what it feels like.
And if getting up and doing something is going to help me get up and do things, then perhaps I truly can take that first step. It’s kind of like practicing tough love on myself. Gently, though. Lovingly.
I’m not saying it’s easy. I can’t just turn on a switch and suddenly have the energy, the insight, or even the will to do something, even if I know it would be to my benefit. It’s hard, very hard. But if I can just make a slight movement forward, I can begin to overcome the inertia that feels like a 10,000 ton weight holding me down.
This all comes to mind today because I am heading out on an overnight camping excursion with my daughter. An absolute and utter miracle, if I look back on how I felt four months ago. Back then it was a major undertaking to get myself to the grocery store. Unless I had to buy food for the cats, it was just easier for me not to eat.
I am thankful for the therapists at brain school who told me to just do it anyway.
Wishing you a good day today.
Maggie
NaPoWriMo, Day 26. The prompt:
Write a poem that uses repetition.
I dreamt last night,
but I can’t recall
what happened in the dream.
I dreamt last night
and when I awoke,
I felt lesser than.
I dreamt last night.
Whatever happened in the dream,
I let myself down somehow.
I dreamt last night,
You were in the dream.
And someone else.
I dreamt last night.
You found out what I did,
but I chose to lie about it.
I dreamt last night.
It didn’t really happen.
I did not let myself down,
nor you.
April Fifteen, Tax Day.
Doesn’t much matter to me, mine are pretty simple.
No investments, no dependents, one job.
On the job that day, as a matter of fact.
Working the southbound toll booth
where traffic comes off the bridge that crosses
the mighty Columbia.
A truck has stalled somewhere on the span.
A state police car passes northbound and,
several minutes later, returns.
I flag it through; no toll for State vehicles.
It stops anyway.
“You’re Margaret, right?” the trooper asks.
Well, not really… that’s my first name,
but I go by my middle name.
My driver’s license, however,
would show Margaret.
The trooper, who apparently has run my license plate,
invites me for coffee when my shift ends.
I accept.
April Fifteen, seventeen years later.
That’s the day our divorce papers go through.
Like many other folks I know,
I do not like Tax Day.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 