Blue is Beautiful

Sadness and depression aren't the same thing.  Ever since I came back from Peru where I had my demons of depression purged, I've still had moments of real sadness.  But it's okay, because sadness and grief, as painful as they may be, aren't bad.  Depression is.  I learned that distinction in the Amazon rainforest drinking ayahuasca.
I've never been much of a news hound, although I like to stay relatively informed.  But since my return home, I'm deliberately more out of touch than ever.  Now that I'm back in my home and native land, I pay less attention to the news because it's so bloody depressing.  I do my best to avoid distressing pictures and stories, but the Internet is in my face and every day I'll see something that saddens me.

I get requests and exhortations for signatures and money from various agencies because I donate regularly to animal rights and environmental groups, so my name and email are "out there."  One morning last week my mood took a nosedive when I checked my email. I was assaulted with a horrific picture of a dead elephant with its trunk and half its face cut off.  This abomination was done in order to "harvest" its ivory tusks.  So I did the right thing and signed the petition to stop the slaughter, but it didn't make me feel any better.
I felt true grief for what we are doing to these magnificent animals in the name of greed.  But as genuine as my concern and sadness is, it's still not bad.  In fact, it's good that I feel that way.  Even deep grief for the loss of a loved one isn't bad.  It's painfully hard, but it's right and it's necessary. 
When I  railed against the hardship of drinking ayahuasca at the retreat in Peru, the ayahuascera told me not to judge an extremely difficult experience as "bad." 
Healing is difficult.  The more severe the injury or illness is, the longer and more painful the healing process will be.  Realising the difference between something that's bad, which implies judgement, and something that's arduous, which is a descriptive term, was a revelation for me. 

I am saddened by "bad" things, such as animal abuse and environmental destruction.  In fact, they may even depress me.  But they don't make me feel worthless and ashamed.  They aren't a reflection of who I am.  The things I deem "bad" reflect what I believe is right and wrong.  When I'm saddened or even horrified by what humanity is capable of doing, it means I care, and that's a good thing.  Rock bottom depression means the sufferer is beyond caring.  Depression renders a person self-absorbed. 
Nowadays, if I shed tears for the suffering of others, and that includes all living beings, it's because I'm no longer trapped in a morass of self-centred gloom.  I've been liberated from the prison of self-pity so that I can feel genuine sorrow for someone or something else, and perhaps do something about it, even if it's just showing some compassion.
Although grief and sadness usually happen because of a significant loss, love is at the very core of these  undesirable but necessary emotions.  Depression, however, is a result of a lack of love, whether it's for the self or another.  Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon, a brilliant, biographical tome about his depression, says that the opposite of depression isn't happiness, but vitality.  And William Faulkner famously said that "given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain."  Depression immobilises and atrophies the soul.  Grief and sadness, however, move the spirit, even though it may hurt like hell.  There's a stirring in the soul that allows for emotional clearance and eventual healing.
Although genuine sorrow makes the heart and soul vulnerable to more of the same, it also exposes the goodness and beauty that lie within.  It's a sign that life and love still matter.  And that's a good thing.
- g.p.

It's the Little Things

I recently saved the life of a butterfly.  I was leaving the local liquor emporium with my purchase when I noticed a red admiral butterfly stuck inside the store.  It was desperately  fluttering up and down the picture windows trying to find a way to escape. I knew there was no way the butterfly could survive in a sterile, indoor environment, so I took it upon myself to release it outdoors.
Normally I would have had two free hands to capture the butterfly, because I rarely leave the house without my knapsack to carry my goods.  But not this time.  Since I was holding a bottle of wine, I was forced to perform the capture and release operation with only one hand.  I suppose I could have put the bottle down on the floor, but I didn't think that was good idea with all the people walking around.
After a couple of failed attempts to cup the panicky little creature in my free hand, I finally managed to scoop it off the window. Two hands would have made it much easier to catch and then enclose the butterfly between my palms, so capturing it with only one hand was a very delicate procedure.  I'm glad that my slow, careful movements proved to be successful. 
Fortunately, I was very close to the sliding doors, which made it possible for me to make a quick exit.  As I burst out the doors holding a bottle in a paper bag in one hand (I know how that sounds - but too bad) and a butterfly cupped in the other, I nervously announced to a couple of customers entering the store to make way for a woman on a butterfly rescue mission.  They seemed rather amused as they politely complied with my request.  As soon as I was outside, I opened my hand and watched the butterfly take off.  I'd been able to contain it without damaging its wings at all. 
I was very grateful for a happy ending to a sweet little bit of drama.  Helping that butterfly made my day.  And I bet the butterfly was glad, too.
- g.p.

Distant Waves

A picture is a secret about a secret.  The more it tells you, the less you know.

- Diane Arbus

I have an old photograph of a young girl and her mother, their temples pressed lightly against each other as they face the camera, artfully posing for the picture.  The photograph was taken by my grandfather, and my mother and grandmother are the models.  Grandma is all smiles, clearly enjoying the moment.  My mother, however, is not as enthusiastic.  She looks sad and world weary far beyond her five years.  Her eyes have a distant look, and the corners of her mouth are turned down.  The first time I saw this photograph I was a young girl myself, just a few years older than my mother was when she posed for the picture.

Ma had hundreds of photographs depicting her life growing up in Latvia.  Most of them were taken by Grandpa, who was a gifted amateur photographer.  Many years later my mother expertly pasted some of them into albums, either thematically or chronologically. The rest were kept in large, shallow boxes.
I loved riffling through the pictures and looking at the childhood and adolescent versions of my mother’s side of the family.  In the two decades before the Second World War photography wasn’t the digital point-and-press hobby it is now. The photos Grandpa took were almost always carefully set up, so that everyone had lots of time to smile and look camera-ready before the shutter finally clicked and whirred.  My aunt and uncle, who were my mother’s younger siblings, and my drama queen grandmother invariably seemed fine with having their picture taken.  My mother - not so much.  Even when she was all dolled up especially for the occasion, she didn’t smile.  She usually bore the look of someone who couldn’t smile on demand because she didn’t smile much at all.
I spent a lot of time trying to find pictures of my mother with a smile on her face; even the Latvian equivalent of a “say cheese” grin would have done.  There were a few of her as an adolescent that looked as if she was making an attempt at it.  I guess by then she’d noticed that people tend to look better when they look happy.  She eventually improved at smiling for the camera as an adult, perhaps because she was a beautiful woman and knew how to work it to her advantage in pictures. 

It may be true that the camera never lies, but it also hints at untold stories and secrets.  I intuitively knew that as I searched to understand my mother’s reluctance to put on a happy face.  I wanted to unearth the story beneath the photograph’s glossy surface.  Those photographs taught me how to make connections between the past and the present, the seen and the unseen.  What I felt in my bones fascinated me far more than anything I could plainly comprehend with my ordinary senses.  Pictures may show what happened, and even how something happened, but they seldom reveal why.
Over the years I eventually realized that the photograph of my mother and grandmother was the proverbial picture that’s worth a thousand words.  Although that significant picture isn’t typically defined as synchronicity, it was a sign that pointed to a future my mother would one day share with me.
That photo speaks to me now more than ever.  It’s a constant reminder that I can’t change the past, and if I want some control over what happens in the future, I must pay attention to the present.  That’s strong advice from an old photograph that whispers secrets I’ll never know.  But I'm still listening. 
-g.p.