cacophony

and I see my son’s Tonka trucks, gathered into a circle, by me, over the weekend — so that I could take a picture. They look . . . abandoned. Forlorn. It’s a gray day, not very pleasant, and Nate has no interest in playing with them. Instead, he is running around in various states of dress — this morning he was in full Peter Pan costume; right now, he is dressed as Spiderman. He loves to be anyone but himself.

I see the yard full of leaves, showing me that in spite of 80° (sometimes even 90°) days in the last week or two, we are well into the march toward winter. The days are short — sww goes to work in the dark, comes home in the dark, grinds away at work, school, helping to maintain a home — I wonder sometimes if there’s any joy left in his life. I miss the sun. I taught in a classroom for five years that had no windows, no connection to the outside, and I spent many a break between classes dashing down the two flights of stairs, outside for an instant, just to feel the sun on my face. Reconnect with its force. Life is not meant to be lived only in artificial light and in darkness. We are meant to revel in the sun.

I see a squirrel running along the top of the back fence, pausing and sitting up every couple of seconds — for what, I don’t know. We put Nate’s birdfeeder in a tree, and so far I have seen it attract no birds, but many many squirrels. I would like to get some real birdfeeders for our yard. There are a few teeny tiny birds flitting through one of the trees. I have no idea what kind of bird they are; nearly as small as hummingbirds, neutral in color. The squirrel has gone under the Tonka trucks now. I wonder what he expects to find.

I see Nate’s bright blue shovel, that he uses to plant acorns or just to make holes in the ground. I think he misses his sandbox. I see him looking at the backyard sometimes, looking lost — like this is not how it supposed to be; this is not where I am supposed to be. I miss the joy he used to have in playing outside while I sat on the porch and watched. I hope, as he becomes more and more accustomed to the new backyard, that joy comes back.

We’re missing too much joy in our lives. We all need to find it again. Every day I think it’s getting better, but there are moments of every day I feel I’m just deluding myself. It’s just as dark as it’s been for months. The trick is not to let those moments crush me.

The sun is rising. I remember the fist time I saw an actual sunrise; rather, I should say the first actual sunrise that I remember watching. I was young — I think younger than ten years old — and it was the dead of winter. We were in Grandmother and Boom’s house in Jackson, and Daddy was taking me duck hunting. Not the first time, not the last, but a time that remains vividly in my memory. Hunting in the Delta always involved getting up unbearably early — the only time I’ve seen Daddy get up cheerfully at an early hour — long before the sun came up. I remember sitting at the breakfast table in Grandmother’s kitchen, still mostly asleep, waiting for Daddy to get ready. I wasn’t being useful or helpful — just waiting. I have no idea what Daddy was wearing, but I had on jeans and a black turtleneck with wide rainbow stripes. Not exactly hunting clothes, but I have to expect that I was going to put on a camo coverall once we actually got ready to hunt. I remember it was COLD — duck hunting was the only time in my childhood I was really exposed to cold weather. We got in the car, and I remember trying to sleep (without much luck; even then, I had no ability to sleep in a vehicle) in the backseat. At some point, Daddy told me, “Carrie Lea, turn around and look behind us.” I did, and was treated to the very first sunrise I remember seeing. I was, predictably, awed. The colors, the intensity — the magic.

In spite of all my knowledge of how and why the sunrise happens, it is still in my mind a moment of pure magic. The sky on fire, an astounding canvas of color and intensity, abstraction in the most powerful sense, and then suddenly — the sun is there. The promise of warmth, the promise of light, of life — and even at such a young age, it was indescribable. Astounding. Powerful. My love affair with the Earth, the natural world, had begun even then. I remember then, watching the sun be born that morning, again, as it is every day, I had tears on my cheeks and I didn’t even understand why.

I understand now.

I do not watch enough sunrises — or for that matter, sunsets — in my life now. Just do not. There is no reason to allow myself to get away with that, no reason at all. How sad for me. How sad that I have let myself get here.

I get up early enough. What is to prevent me from taking my chair, my cup of coffee, my camera, and my “book” outside to greet the day, to contemplate the promise that it brings. To revel in the magic that is sunrise. One day, the reality is that I will not be able to do that anymore. I don’t know what that day will be, or when it will come, but one day sitting outside to greet the day just won’t be feasible for me anymore. I have no way to know what day I’ll realize that the last possible morning I have that I could sit outside and watch the sunrise has slipped away. I can assume that it will be years and years and years from now, but the reality is that I don’tknow. How sad would it be if that day slipped by without me even noticing, without me even bothering? Heartbreaking. I don’t want to take that chance. I want to watch the sunrise. Wake up, Carrie. Be here.

But the phrase “the sun is rising” has a very powerful non-literal meaning for me too. I tend to think of depression as a place of unbearable, unrelenting darkness. Thanks to my recognition and treatment of that darkness, I am back in a place — finally, it seems like it’s been so long — where the sun is rising. The darkness is fading and more and more of my reality is being kissed by light and not shadows. I haven’t reached that truly magic point yet — the point where the sun is suddenly there and the day has arrived with all it’s pregnant promise. But I see the gradual lightening, the lessening of the dark — I’m in that in-between place . Out of the bottomless darkness but not quite — just not quite — into the light yet. I’m starting to have confidence, though, that I’ll get there.

I still hate it here.

In an effort to keep my head as far above water as I’m able, I have gone back to reread my journal from the time when I was first in recovery from depression, when I first began taking this medication.

I so want to draw, to learn to draw. It can’t be too late for that, can it? Suddenly there are all these exciting plans and possibilities and ideas in my life! And they don’t have to be complete today — they can take years to develop because I’m STILL GOING TO BE HERE in years to come. The trees have colors. A red so deep it’s almost purple, plum, wine and a yellow that jumps into your head and screams at you and every possible color in between. Driving to the library I missed my exit because I was looking at the trees and I was laughing out loud. I don’t remember that kind of joy in something so simple ever in my life. I want to draw. I want to take photos. There is so much I want to do and so much, finally, really — in front of me! Did a medication do this for me? Or is this really who I am?

. . . .

I think I feel like I have to relearn myself. This person on this little pill is so different from the person I have known for so long. Wow. I could like this person a lot. I need to learn how to do being happy. How to do more than just cope and actually live.
Oh wow. The person I am. My green and white salvation. That’s waht it seems like to me. I am scared of relying on a medication to be me. I am scared of going back to the life I had. Jesus, it’s like someone flipped a switch. The difference is the fear doesn’t paralyze me. It’s great and scary and amazing and fascinating. I just want to cry and scream and laugh out loud. Forever. And twirl around like a child. I love this me.

That’s the point, Carrie. Cling to it.

It seems, after nearly seven years being depression free, six of them without meds, that I’m here again and unable to escape on my own. So I’ve got an appointment with my doctor and will be starting antidepressant therapy again. I feel so defeated.

. . . .

The first time I clearly remember feeling crushed by despair, I was very very young. I don’t remember how young, but certainly before I was twelve and maybe before I was ten. I was sitting in the bath, and it seems looking back that I had been for hours. The water had gotten cold, and I remember reaching out and draining it, staring at the water swirling around the drain and in some dim part of my brain, where thought was still happening, I wished I could follow the water. I sat, knees drawn to my chest, arms wrapped around them, and rested my head on my knees and cried, rocking back and forth. I was wet, freezing, and felt . . . desolate. Crushed. Hopeless. Angry.

. . . .

I found myself in the shower less than a week ago in almost exactly the same position — still freezing and desolate. At 31 years old, I felt essentially no different than that very young girl all those years ago. This came shortly on the heels of using a run to push myself past the point of sanity, to a point where I was crying from the physical pain in my legs and feet and lungs, but continuing to push because I needed the pain. I wanted to hurt. Sitting on the floor of the shower, I realized I can’t do this on my own. The past six months have been an exercise in excuses, telling myself that I would feel better soon, trying to trick myself into believing that I did feel better, and just being downright stubborn. Sitting there, rocking back and forth, I couldn’t feed myself those excuses anymore.

. . . .

When I was 23 years old, I found out who I was underneath the depression that had been with me as long as I have memory. I started a combination of med therapy and cognitive therapy. I truly believe that a little green and white pill, and a woman name Stella, literally saved my life. Becoming well — not depressed — was a surreal, exhilarating, miracle experience. At that point, I believed I’d be on an antidepressant for the rest of my life. In reality, after 18 months of med therapy, I was able to wean myself off the medication and still not relapse into depression. I’ve been able to maintain that status quo for almost six years. Until about six months ago, anyway.

. . . .

I really thought I’d won, that I had all the tools I needed and that I’d never be here, in this place, again. But here I am. I hate being here.

but man I wish I had a hand to hold.”
— Edie Brickell, “Me by the Sea”

I am an avoidant person by nature, and very much an introvert. When things become too much for me, I withdraw — as far and as deep as I can, as far away from people as I can get. And I stay wrapped up in myself as long as I can. There comes a point, though, when that withdrawal is too deep, too far, and hurts me more than it helps me.

If I spend a week without writing a word, I am being helpful to no one. If I can look back on an entire month and find no new photos of my child, much less anything else, then I have fucked up. I am fucked up. Denying my drives is never helpful; it always means I have pulled too far away from my life.

I wonder where it came from — this creation drive. Do all people have it, and only some of us indulge ourselves, or are there only some of us that have this slashing, clawing need living inside, trying to find a way out? Sometimes I wish I didn’t have it, because I tear myself up if I don’t get it out of me. Rip myself to shreds. And that is not a very comfortable fit with my tendency, desire, to withdraw into myself. Why do I need to rediscover this over and over and over again? Why do I have to keep fighting with myself to reach an understanding I’ve achieved already dozens of other times in my life? And every time I do this to myself, I get angrier.

There is always, finally, something that snaps me back. That pulls me out of that shell. This time, it was a series of photos from a friend that were both visually stunning and emotionally powerful, a punch in the gut — and the kick in the ass that I needed. Like a light switch was thrown — yes. Yes, this is who you are. This is what you should be doing, see? This is the kind of thing you want to strive to do. Just like this.

And suddenly I find myself iwth pen in hand, camera in hand, and once again — open.

I don’t know what I want to say. I don’t know what I want to take photos of. I don’t know what I want to bring out, what I want to birth out of the darkness, what I want to put out into the world — what I want to create.

Finding out is the fun part.

I want to capture this feeling, bottle it, so I never forget what it feels like. So that when these avoidance tendencies, and this too-deep withdrawal, try to smother me I can chase them away with ease rather than — once again — having to fight myself to get here.

But every time I try, I get tangled up in my head and nothing makes it onto the page.

I have been rocked by my grandfather’s death, more so than I ever expected to be. I feel adrift, untethered — all my grandparents are gone now. My son will have no memories of any of his great-grandparents. That seems so — final. Empty. Heartbreaking.

The services for Gramps were lovely. Nate slept through both of the actual services, which was a relief. And it was helpful for me, because I was able to just hold my son while I cried — and cry I did. Throughout both services, more than I expected to cry. The entire weekend was completely overwhelming. Of Gramps’ 18 grandchildren, 16 of us were there, with our spouses and our children. We had a party — a celebration of his life — after the graveside service at my parents’ house. From our family, there were 34 adults there and 19 children (17 of whom were below the age of 10). And some close family friends were there as well. Overwhelming, actually, may be an understatement. I saw family that I haven’t seen in a dozen years. My husband met cousins of mine that he’s never met before. I so wish that it didn’t take a death to pull us all together again.

Rather than anything cohesive, I have snippets of things that made an impression on me.

. . . .

I saw cousin Clay for the first time in more than ten years. He is touchier than I remember — reaching out, touching, petting, holding on. Very affectionate. Susan is everything I remember her to be, and it is good to see them finally married. They seemed very happy, very content. I don’t remember seeing that in Clay before.

Cousin Earl lost his beard. But the huge, bushy mustache leaves him still looking like Grizzly Adams, a comparison first made long ago by cousin Tracy. sww asked “Do you think if they hadn’t named him Earl, he’d have still turned out that way?” Yes. We do.

There were three 3-year-old’s among Nancy’s grandkids — Alex, Katie, Noble. They are all huge; so much bigger than Nate. Definitely got the genes from my “giant strain” of cousins. It was so much fun to watch them all playing together.

Nate got very upset at actually saying goodbye to Gramps — though it was his choice to do so. I really struggled with how to deal with this for him — and ended up dong the same that I try to do with everything that touches his life — explain it as well as I can, and try to help him find the best way to “deal” with things. I think I made the right choice in the way I handled it, but it was very hard. He sobbed all the way out of the chapel and to the car — “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye” — over and over again. I am so thankful that he fell asleep in the car on the way to the gravesite.

My baby sister got very, very drunk and she kept walking around, going up to her cousins and saying “I’m the youngest grandchild, and I’m getting married in February. How old do YOU feel?”

At one point, all of Gramps’ children and their spouses headed out to the garage for a “meeting.” I went out there to get a drink and was chided for interrupting. I said “Oh, so this is where all the grownups are!” because, in all truth, that’s how I think of them still — the same way I did when I was five. They are the grownups, and we are the kids. They all laughed at me. “Well, Carrie, what do you think you are, if not a grownup?” I laughed. “Well, I could have said old folks, but I didn’t think y’all would like that.” Susan said when she tried to sneak out there for a smoke, she said “Oh, I found all the parents!” Yeah, she’s probably more tactful than I am.

Cousin Serin asked me if I told Nate to do that — because at Granny’s funeral, I was the grandchild who started bawling uncontrollably, and apparently I set off all the rest of the grandkids. She said “We were all holding it together until you fell apart — but once you did, it was over for us all.” I was in second grade, and I don’t remember that at all. I don’t remember anything about Granny’s service except watching Daddy cry.

We talked about all the things we all remember — riding the golf carts all over the neighborhood, the fact that just the mention of Gramps’ name allowed us WAY too much freedom on the hotel grounds, playing on the golf course, the piñatas at Christmas, summers in Granny’s pool, haunted houses that we put on whenever we had the chance. It is astounding to have such a huge number of shared (collective?) memories with so many other people. There were always cousins around when I was growing up — at least until Granny died. So many of us sharing our childhoods. It rips me up that, as a family, we have neglected this for our kids — that Nate will grow up without that chaotic bliss of a large, close-knit family. None of Gramps’ children will ever have 18 grandchildren; none of our kids will ever have that many first cousins. But they all have a boatload of second cousins — 26 great-grandchildren, currently. But instead of being common for us all to get together, for our kids to be able to build that vast storehouse of shared memories — it’s a rarity. It makes me sad.

I looked around that night, and I saw so much life. Loud, raucous, chaotic, vibrant, intense life. Babies and old folks and everything in between. This is what Gramps left behind; this is what he gave birth to. All of us — his family. All of our energy and our joy and our drive and our ups and downs and . . . everything. And we are a pretty fucking amazing legacy.

. . . .

It seems that Gramps spent the last year of his life telling people he loved them, after a lifetime of not saying it. He started saying “I love you.” To his kids, to his grandkids, who’d never heard it. He’d never said it. But we knew.

We knew.

I knew it was coming soon. But I wasn’t expecting it just quite so soon.

Gramps died a week ago today.

I have a lot (an awful, awful lot) to say about this past week. But I’m not quite up to writing (at least not well) about it yet.

I love you, Gramps. I miss you. I’m so glad you’re not suffering anymore.

What the fuck does that mean?

Stay-at-home-mom. Women have gone through this “evolution” of what they want to be called when they don’t work outside the home (god help you if you say they “don’t work”). Once upon a time, we were called housewives. At some point, we became homemakers. Now we are SAHMs. We even get our own acronym. If you spend much time in the internet mommy world (on mommy blogs, forums, etc) you’ll find all mothers have acronyms attached to them — WOHM, WAHM, SAHM. Everybody’s got a little box to jump into.

The idea behind the current term is that we don’t stay home in order to cook, clean, or otherwise do “house” stuff — we stay home to mother our children, and that is what the focus should be on when we describe what we do. So the phrase “stay-at-home-mom” was coined.

You’d think this would be simple. It’s just a phrase, right? But I have seen so much ugliness over this issue. Some mothers don’t like SAHM because “well, that implies we stay home all day, and we don’t — we’re usually out doing interesting stuff.” Some call themselves “full-time mothers,” which of course offends the WOHMs (work outside the home mothers) because they, of course, are also the full time mothers of their children — it’s not as if someone else becomes “mom” while they are at work all day. I could go on and on and on about all the different “titles” that have been suggested, and all the criticisms of them.

The things I want to say about this issue are complex, and convoluted, and it may take me many, many tries before I can truly articulate them.

But. What does it come down to? Women — mothers, specifically — fighting among themselves about “who’s doing it better.” This is what the press knows as “The Mommy Wars” — and they are awful. Women already have enough problems on their plates. Why are we adding infighting among ourselves to the battles we need to wage?

Is it better for a child to have mom at home, all the time, rather than go to daycare? Is it better for children to have the role model of strong, independent women who work outside the home to emulate? How do you decide? Is what’s better for one the same as what’s better for another? Is it setting feminism back to have so many college-educated women choosing to opt out of the workforce? Does my individual decision to stay home with my child have a negative effect on society as a whole? Does it have a positive one?

And that doesn’t even touch the surface of the mommy wars. Where it gets really vicious is in the “I have it harder than you do” battle, the “I’m a better mother than you are because I’m willing to make the sacrifices for my child” rhetoric. All of which, to be perfectly honest, makes me want to vomit. I’ve done both. I’ve been a WOHM and now I’m a SAHM. Without a single doubt, being a WOHM was harder for me day-to-day, and caused significantly more guilt on my part. Without a single doubt, my being a SAHM is harder for my child, and harder for me in a long term sense. But that’s ME, and MY family. I would never presume to judge for another family which way would be harder, or best, for them.

Some of the things I’ve heard from other women are stunning in their venom. As a WOHM, I heard “Why did you have children if you were going to let someone else raise them?” “How does it feel not to be the primary caregiver for your child?” “How can you call yourself an attached parent when you spend so much time away from your child?” “You know, your child doesn’t really THRIVE in daycare, you just tell yourself that so that you feel good about leaving him. I understand that sometimes we have no choice, but don’t fool yourself that daycare is really BETTER for him.” “I really miss working outside the home, but I care enough about my kids to give it up for them.” “It must be nice to have that break from your kids, to go to work so you can get some rest.” ” Being a SAHM is so much harder than working.” As a SAHM, I’ve heard “So how does your child get any stimulation during the day?” “It must be nice not to have to DO anything all day.” “Aren’t you concerned that he’s growing up seeing that you don’t have anything of value to offer society?” “Being a WOHM is so much harder than staying at home.”

It’s never ending. And watching it play out in my life, in the lives of so many women I know, just makes me sad.

Here’s the truth as I know it: having a SAHM is NOT best for every child. No matter how much the “world” at large would like us to believe it, it is simply not true — and, moreover, I think the idea is something that a bunch of men came up with that does nothing but weaken women. This pisses a lot of women off, because they are living in poverty, making supreme sacrifices, going on welfare — so that their children can have a mom at home. They don’t want to hear that it might not be the best choice because having that SAHM is not the most important thing in a child’s life. But there are so, so many things that are just as important, that are more important. And EVERY mother has a hard job. And working outside the home does NOT make a person less of a mother, in any way.

I wish mothers would quit fighting amongst themselves. I wish we could unite to push for BETTER care for women and pregnancies, better care for babies, MORE choices for women.

Instead, we fight amongst ourselves.

Which, I think, means the people we SHOULD be fighting against have already won.