The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I tried to knit this:

(Arpeggio by Maria Leigh on Ravelry)

It appealed to me because its design embodies a high order of complexity. Everything about it is difficult and demanding--the stitch, the construction method, the shaping, the sizing, the finishing. It's hard to cast on, hard to bind off, and unforgiving for every row in between.

I thought I could do it, but I couldn't. Everything difficult about it was, for me, actually impossible.

( Like a lot of things in my life, this isn't REALLY about knitting at all. )

I went out for a mojito with a coworker friend of mine last night. We sat outdoors at the Brasserie Montmartre and watched Friday evening people going by in their fancy clothes. The mojitos were perfect, and the Bra' serves these teeny little pommes frites done in duck fat that are from heaven. It should have been a stellar wind-down to the week.

( Alas. )

"You look cute!" Tiffany all but shouted, interrupting her phone call to deliver this opinion to me in the crowded lobby. My friend Todd, escaping with me into an elevator, muttered, "She's trying to hook us up." I just laughed uncomfortably.

---

Comments on my post about Zumba made me grope a little harder to express why taking a dance[like] class was such a big deal for me. In a nutshell, I don't live in my body very much. I've made other attempts, I've made progress, but "overcoming the straitjacketing of physical shame is the hardest thing about going and practicing and re-trying."

To ground myself more reliably in the physical realm, I've taken extensive Alexander Technique lessons and have undergone a variety of body-based therapies (some of which I've written quite a bit about here). I've been a gym-bunny with 19% body fat, I've done theater and voice training, I've been a dedicated long-distance walker, and as everyone here knows, I've become an avid bike commuter.

But you know what? ( Sex. That's what. )

So this morning, when Tiffany declared me "cute," and my good friend Todd muttered, "She thinks we should hook up,"⁴ part of me laughed uncomfortably, and part of me said, "Oh, Universe, you work in such unexpected ways." Because I think I know a sign when I see one. And that sign said that I'm on the track of something significant.

The hip-swiveling of Zumba is just a bead on the scarlet gown of the girl who went to fairy prison five decades ago.

¹(I just realized that the "single breath story" I'm supposed to be writing is about this restoration, and that's why I've not been able to finish it: not enough of it was conscious until just now.)
² Not that I need or want any more money than I've got. I'm fine. Really.
³Too late ho-ho! Ha ha ha ha! Ho ho ho ho!.
⁴No, we shouldn't. People have thought it for years because we look alike and we're friends and of opposite genders and the same age. It'd be...sibling-ish.

Dear Self:

Next time you're tempted by the ranty goodness, remember ( a few simple guidelines )

I've gone two or three rounds with a threatening bout of depression the last few days. I think I've won.

Depression signals itself for me in intrusive thoughts and memories, mostly of a shameful, horrifying sort. It has all the characteristics of an attack, as of schoolyard bullies who won't stop throwing things at me and calling me names. I cower and quiver within myself as I try to go about my daily life, none of which seems to have any real purpose while I'm under attack.

Depression has a hall-of-mirrors quality, multiplying and monster-ifying itself just by showing up. Depression makes itself worse.

I've done battle for years with this monster, though, and I know its tricks. It alters my perception in completely irrational ways, making what was acceptable yesterday unbearable today, and what was good yesterday tainted today. Refusing to believe its lies (no matter how fucking real they seem) is my first line of defense.

( Repeat after me: It's not reality. It's brain chemistry. )

Today I woke up feeling like myself again, and so far it's holding firm.

People who don't have depression can't imagine how such a small "mood swing" can be so threatening and require so much focused effort. People who do will probably recognize how much of my own life I was lucky enough to save last night.

Long time ago, I read a poem--undoubtedly a very minor one, published in the local paper--in which a homesick Oregonian wonders how things are back home. The last line was "Does Oregon still wear her Hood of snow?"

Well, she does.

( Mt. Hood today. )
I took an emergency sanity-saving bike ride this afternoon because it's SUNNY outside--perfectly, cloudlessly sunny. In December. Not all that common. Whereas it's uncommonly boring inside. Pedaled down to Waterfront Park, and this is pretty much what I saw. (Didn't have my camera with me, so have a webcam image.)

I'm feeling a good deal more sane now.