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.