Winter and depression's icy hand...

 

 

“And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars.”

 

In my journey through life, winter is never a good season. It's a suffering that tinges the music of the great composers Liszt, Beethoven, and Chopin, and dances around the darker cantatas of others. I was prepared for the dark hand to hold mine when the clock struck twelve. It tugged and squeezed and it almost won—those who have teetered on the rim, understands this. It goes without saying it's nothing like the ascent to joy from a poet's hand.


Every day I write down my thoughts rather quickly and spontaneously. My paper and pens are my instruments to to write whatever comes to mind—only to be read by my eyes. I speculated in one entry that there was no originality or boldness to speak out frankly about suicide and the impulse towards it. I had apparently underestimated the number of people for whom the subject had been taboo and a matter of secrecy and shame. The overwhelming reaction from others made me feel that I had inadvertently helped many who were eager to come out and proclaim that they too, had experienced some of the same feelings I had described in previous blogs. It was the only time I ever felt it was worthwhile to have invaded my own privacy and to make that privacy public.

When I think of all the doomed and brilliant creative men and women, and the young ones who didn't allow life to happen, I can't help but think of their childhoods, where, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the seeds of depression took strong root. Did any of them have the slightest hint of the psyche's perishability and its fragility? Why did they destroy themselves, while others struggle through the disease of depression? What made me and the tens of thousands who attempted, survive?

No one knows. I don't know. Professionals can only surmise. Some quietly endure the equivalent of physical injuries of never being able to outwardly share their secrets, like the degrading act of rape. For others, warfare, victims of crime, family disappointment, declining careers, failed affairs of the heart and lastly, death. It would be impossible to prove why some people bleed from the inside. It's complex, intermingled factors of abnormal chemistry, behavior and genetics. That is why the greatest fallacy about suicide lies in a single answer. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

The groundhog saw his shadow the other day and six more weeks of winter is predicted. Punxsutawney Phil would be pleased if he could think like you and I, to know I am emerging in a new light with some creative juices flowing. I have been dealt a good poker hand and I feel I'm winning in this game called life. I am writing. I am smiling. I am living in the present with the help of a few patient and wonderful people. It's a tough job staying afloat when someone shouts from the safety of the shore, “Keep treading water!” But if encouragement is tenacious and the support equally committed and passionate—the drowning victim can always be rescued.

Peace and Love.