The Road Goes Ever On…..

Under the Eiffel Tower

 

I understand that it is said that the only place in Paris where you can’t see the Eiffel Tower is under the said Tower.

It’s not true.

You can’t help seeing it even there. I spent two hours nearly waiting below the tower, with a sick student who was unable to ascend, for the rest of the group to get back.

I had a cup of very bad coffee and got chatted up by a very offensive American. I got accosted by beggars.

But I could always see the tower.

Another myth busted.

Me and my shadow in Paris

 

I had a thought; there’s a new Dan Brown due out in a few weeks time. The Lost Symbol, I believe it’s called.

I went to Paris for work last summer and took the following photo while walking round the outside of the Louvre; time didn’t permit entry. I was trying to capture the inverted pyramid where Dan Brown asserted Mary Magdalene’s remains were buried. I only got a good photo of my shadow.

But that’s the way of it. In trying to capture certain things, we see our shadow more clearly than anything else. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre_Pyramid

revisiting self-doubt

I’m there again, in that nasty little space marked self doubt. It doesn’t matter that I can tell myself I’m OK at what I do, or that colleagues tell me I’m great at what I do. There’s still this niggling sense of inadequacy that come back as a roar on some days, the feeling that I’m not good enough and that people are too kind to tell me this. Logic tells me I wouldn’t still be employed in this capacity if I were rubbish at it; I take no notice. Experience tells me that I must be all right at it too, because the students don’t flock to tell their leaders otherwise. But today I had to hand in a feedback form that had open criticism of a colleague on it, and ask that it be kept discreet. I wonder if others have done the same for me, to save my getting angry or upset?

I’m not sure I can blame the Goblins for this one. It’s been there a lot longer than I’ve been a goblin hunter. And I still don’t know why it happens because its in the face of evidence. I know I’m not and am never likely to be the world’s greatest teacher; it doesn’t bother me that much. If I can be the best I can be, that should be enough. But today I even doubt that.

I blame my hormones again.

Insight

I had a bit of an aha! moment this morning while slurping over-hot coffee to try and kickstart brain and body to face the day. The coffee didn’t really work and I’ve been dragging myself around all day; I was virtually Neanderthal by the time I walked home.

The aha! moment came when I realised that nothing I ever achieve in this life is ever going to make me happy or cure my depression. Achievements are irrelevant to brain chemistry. I bet most of us have had that secret thought now and again that says, I’d be happy if I could only….. win the Lottery, get a  better job, lose weight, stop smoking or whatever you like. Well, it ain’t going to happen.

My personal dreams and ambitions are utterly irelevant to whether I am happy or not. If I achieve them, great. Wonderful in fact. But they aren’t what is going to make me contented, at peace with myself.

I guess I’ve always known this. But today I felt like I knew it for the first time. It’s a total sea change for me, because I’ve frequently felt that when I achieve certain things I will be magically cured.

This doesn’t mean I stop seeking and trying and striving to get there. But it does mean I don’t have the same agenda and the same scope for disappointment either.

You see, I’ve begun to believe that for some barmy reason my brain uses up the feel-good chemical serotonin far faster than it can replenish it. I have taken SSRIs off and on for years (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors for the uninitiated) and they are a mere band aid to the problem. Something goes wrong in my grey matter. Maybe thinking too hard does it; maybe it’s purely genetic. But the fact remains that at regular intervals I am unable to feel much happiness in anything.

To realise that my goals in life will not have the power to change that makes me feel rather less pressured to achieve them. I’m not a believer in the whole pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps attitude to depression, nor for that matter in the medicate-till-you-ache method either. But it does give me a somewhat Zen stance on the whole thing. It still matters whether I get there (wherever THERE is) but not because of the depression.

It’s a wildly liberating idea for me. I’d felt for so many years an intense pressure to achieve certain almost unobtainable things and every time I had a set back or a knock, it made it worse because I’d unknowingly tied up all my feelings about curing my depression in achieving that goal. I’d beat myself up far worse than any disappointment could, simply because I felt I’d failed (yet again) to find the Holy Grail.

In religious terms I might say I felt my salvation lay in works. But any mystic will tell you this is Bullshit of the worst kind. Salvation is by grace.

So God grant me courage to change the things I can change

May He grant me the grace to accept the things I can’t change

And may He grant me the wisdom to know the difference

Depression and the art of tightropewalking

If you’ve ever suffered from depression I’d be willing to bet that at least one person you told that you were depressed asked, “What about?”

I’ve probably done it myself thouhtlessly but these days I try and ask whether they know the cause, which is a much more sensible question really.

Because in all honesty, we use the term depressed too readily and it’s diluted its true meaning. You can’t be depressed ABOUT anything; fed up, pissed off or whatever but not depressed. Reactive depression, which is the kind of extreme gloom or misery that has an actual identifiable  cause (grief, job loss etc) is quite different from clinical depression. Clinical depression has its root cause in brain chemistry.

I wish they had thought of another word rather than used Depression for this type of disorder, in the way they’ve stopped using the term Manic depression for Bi-polar disorder. It’s too easy to feel that you can cheer someone up who has clinical depression. I know about laughter therapy and so on but hey, stick with me here. I just wish there was another word.

I should be happy now. I should be delighted that work is now much pleasanter. But it doesn’t seem to matter much at core.

I’ve realised that the fairly awful conditions at work were simply masking the fact that I am still suffering from chronic depression. I let myself be fooled that it was the conditions I was fed up with, and that if they improved so would my mood. Well, conditions are way better and I’m not. I’m cross now. I’ve got some fabulous things going on in my life but I don’t seem to be able to feel happy or excited or really anything much. Just blah. Grey. I’d been missing the fact that battling against trouble was simply blinding me to a problem I can’t seem to solve, whatever I do.

And I have ways to get through a period of depression, believe me, I have a dozen and more methods to lift my own mood, boost my endorphins and so on. I use them and they work. But the Black Dog is still there. He’s been there since I was at least six years old.

Why in heaven’s name does this always happen? Why do I reset to my default setting, and so often and for so long?

I can’t feel much; it’s like being numbed with Novacaine all the time. Except for the times when without warning I feel tears welling up and that I dread. I avoid talking or thinking about some things because I know they’re a trigger. But new ones pop up.

And it slows me down as well. It took me two hours to prepare a lesson that will take only three hours (with break  in the middle taking away 15 mins) to teach. I want to write and yet, nothing seems to flow. It’s like wading through treacle.

Maybe it’s the tiredness talking. Maybe I’m sickening for something. Or maybe the Black Dog is back to stay for a while. I simply was so busy fighting Goblins that I didn’t notice him slip in and get all comfy by the fire.

Afternoon dreaming

I had a much needed nap this afternoon but soon drifted into weird dreams. I dreamed I’d been involved in some capacity in some creative scheme that had caught the eye of some bigwig. Most of the team were getting calls and letters asking them to come and work for some important organisation in a creative capacity. The artists who’d done the art work were being called , the people who’d done the music and the sound were being called. But me, who’d done the writing, nothing. I got asked if I could produce music like the music/sounds being played down a phone, I could go (go where I ask now)  . Someone then produced this marvellous crystal that worked as a kind of sat nav system when placed within a gyroscope, and could somehow access the sounds at the heart of this crystal (it was a phantom quartz, banded with layers of growth) without using the rest of the equipment by simply singing a note that activated the crystal, but when I held it, it did nothing.

I woke feeling very confused and a little disappointed. It was as though everyone else who’d done work had been rewarded but there wasn’t anything for me to go on to. No one was telling me how much they’d liked my writing, how that had made the whole project work. I don’t know what to make of it beyond it’s a huge part of my fears that my efforts and hard work go not just unrewarded but also unremarked.

I need tea now to help me wake up and figure it out; whether it means anything of signicance or it’s just a dream that spells out my fears.

Hymn of Pan

I wrote the following poem about five weeks ago but never found the time energy or motivation to type it up.

Hymn of Pan

 

I am the creeping root that breaks

The concrete crust of roads

I kiss the tiny shoot that becomes

A towering, ancient oak.

I am the song of morning

That greets the rising sun

And with the blackbird’s song at dusk

I sing the world to rest

I am the fierce and cunning weasel

And the timid cowering vole

I am the narrow streamlet

And the raging floods of spring

I know the wild and savage seas

And soft wavelets on the strand

I dance where life is starting

And where it comes to its final end

I am nature’s fiercest defender

And her dearest,  oldest friend

A return to myself

After recent events and changes, I’ve begun to feel as if I am now able to return to my real self, my old way of being. Now that I am not almost paralysed with despair and banging my head against a metaphorical brick wall, I have sensed the start of a returning creativity.

A few nights ago, I began thinking about the novel I began over a year ago which became stalled and unable to progress. The very first inklings of who the people are began to trickle back into my mind and I started to imagine again, to let a story begin to unfold in my mind.

I’ve really missed this. The difficulty is that I am very tired and still rather under the weather emotionally. I can feel my equilibrium returning but even so, I’m not back to balance at all. I had a sleep this afternoon which was extremely welcome, but it did make me notice just how tired I am. Next week I’m back to teaching a full class; this week I have been teaching one-to-one with an adult. It’s been a nice change but it’s if anything more intense emotionally than having a class of kids. The summer season is drawing to an end. Only a few more weeks and the summer school is over. I’ve got work for three weeks in September, then me and my husband have some time off together. Then I don’t know what will happen workwise.

I’m just looking forward to having some time where I can dream and write and dream some more. In the meantime, I am going to try and get some writing done most days when I can fit it in. I managed to get some done today when I woke up.

The fabric of my work universe was ripped from top to bottom last week and we’re all readjusting to a new environment and it’s much better but for me, I need to see the events of the last 18 months (which is how long the work problems have been going on for me ) as food for thought and food for possible stories, and I need to let them sink in deeply and let my unconscious work with them.

It’ll be interesting to see what it makes of them over time. I’ll keep you informed!

Lammas Dream

I woke  this morning after a night of odd dreams, one of which moved me to tears. Last night I had to fetch back my hive of bees after we’d been informed that it was being raided by wasps so we were late back last night and had to get the girls settled in a discreet part of the garden, working by torchlight. I’m mulling over a lot of things right now and am intending to start weaving them into a set of stories when I get a bit of time and energy, but this dream seems to be a part of the inner journey I am taking right now. I’m not going into any more than that as it’d take too long so I’ll give the gist of the central part of the dream.

I am not sure where I was, but it was a bit like one of the great summer fetes we have here in England and I’d wandered off a bit before finding a sort of gazebo or tent with it’s sides up, much like the ones you find at summer fairs and village fetes all over the country. But when I stepped inside it, everything changed. If I said it was decorated with autumn leaves and berries and ripe apples, I’d be damning it with faint praise. It was as though those things had magically just grown there. No flower arranger had had a hand in this; it was beyond beautiful. Branches of all sorts of trees seemed to have woven themselves together, some laden with nuts and berries like hazel and rowan, and others had apples and pears and plums and all sorts of other fruit as well as leaves that were changing colour to their autumn hues. But it was the atmosphere that made me cry with a strange atavistic joy. I’d stepped into the very presence of God, or that’s what it felt like. A deeper peace I can seldom remember experiencing. The scent of fruit flowers, leaves and barks filled the air and there was a profound expectant quiet like the feeling in a church when the last notes of the organ die away leaving a resonance like silver hanging in the air. Apart from me, no one was there. I simply didn’t want to leave. The dream moved on then and other things happened that I must ponder later.

When I finally woke this morning and drank tea, I remembered today is Lammas, the feast of the ripening corn and the harvest. I’d woken with tears of joy and sorrow at leaving that tent of God and now I feel I must seek it again or even create my own corner of it.

Lammas blessings to everyone who reads this.