Getting Past S.A.D.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason I fall into such depressions is the lack of movement. I haven’t run in two weeks. And now I’m not always succeeding in getting my body into the shower. Sadness is one thing. But sadness is like the turn of the key for an engine that will drive me, spinning, into the familiar trench. Spinning and going nowhere. If sadness is a tug, depression is the friction burn where an ambiguous want rubs against inertia.

An object remains at rest until an outside force acts on it. Until the world shifts somehow.

This is the beginning of winter. And really, what that means is the end of endings. This is a season of fallow time, of preparation for what is next. I like the quiet. And how the calls of a knot of sparrows will slide over the ice for blocks on a still afternoon. They rattle the dried leaves of the hedges, revealing themselves. And the crows hop along just ahead of Leonard and me. Unflustered. All of us. Each of us.

A hawk flies overhead.

But then I come back into the house, come back to expectations that I just can’t rouse myself to deal with. Socks to match and fold. Dishes to wash. Christmas presents to wrap.

In the corner of the studio there are a dozen glass jars, candle wax, wicks and essential oils. The second year the lot’s been stacked there. Ambitions. A second Advent that never happened. I told E. that maybe Christmas in July has to be a real thing for me. I need to put the products of a summer’s warmth on Lay-Away.

E. has no idea what Lay-Away is/was. In fact, no one I know does. I’m reminded that in Norway I am not legally allowed to call myself an “immigrant”. So I have no words to describe this kind of alone.

I thought this year I’d drawn a hard line under so many difficulties. “Now, this time, I will get it right.” I’ve cracked the code. Taken the medications. Figured it out. Got past it.

And then there is the guilt that is really self-indulgence.

Can you smell the burning rubber of spinning tires?
I need a shower.

And then I will try again.