Mask
Depression, give me back my mask!Hand over that enduring smile,the one that makes my jaws ache.Reattach my cherished Hostess-Face,Perfect-Mother-Wife, Creative-Genius,Pioneer-Woman, Ready-Kilowatt disguise.Don’t you see you’ve pried awayall I thought was best in me,the charming, loving, gutsy,witty, winning womanwho would never disappoint?I paid dearly to fabricate perfection.Paid dearly.Maybe that’s your point.
Halfness
What lies in the Shadow?What belies the light?Feeling my way into my owndarkness with great care,I may discover treasure,my secret desires,my hidden talents,the other half-nessof my wholeness,my unlived life.
Urn
My body an urn of ashes and ruin,I thought the fire of my life had gone out.But depression is a cunning acolyte.To forge my wholeness, the fire had gone in.
Senses
When I am deadened with depression,I will move within my own breathand try to do some small taskthat might bring me to my senses.Peel the world in an orange:pebbled globe, bite of zest,jeweled droplets, festive scentof Christmas at my Grandmother’s…For now, the tomb is sprung;I am alive in all my senses.
Balance
I am learning to keep my balance,putting one foot in front of the other,weight on one foot,wait on the other.
Alive
Stress, I know.The question nowis where and howI can begin to findgrace of the mostamazing kind–the physicality of grace–one bodymindspiritfloating on the moment,buoyant on the sea of life,relaxing into laughter,slowing down to savor,being everywhere I go,mindful of my knowing body,knowing what my body knows.
Dance
And here it begins and ends… in surrender…When I stand to receive the blackveil of depression as my own.Not passively, like a victim,but accepting it like gravity,a fact of life unchanged bymy resistance or other plans. I surrender all then, knowingthis black veil was made for me,one of many colored scarves.And I resolve to move […]
Seed
A seed, buried deep underground,I curl in upon myselfinside my dry-hard husk,tapping unknown inner stores,learning to wait without expectationfor the rains to come, for warmth,for leaf sprouts and pushing buds,for the hour this creative darknesswill bring forth new life.
Music
What is the music of depression?It calls me to attend, to listento the silences of my heart,to my body’s innate rhythms,to the whisper of the moment,to the soundings of my soul,to what my life wants me to know,to the faint, remembered strainsof the song God taught me to singbefore I was born.
Come
I cannot come to you now.I am not who I was, notyet who I am becoming.But I need you,how desperately I need you…to hold meand to let me goto destiny’s journey,waiting, trusting, findingyou love me more for whatI have suffered for Life.
