Sometimes Not Even The Sun Helps
Morning closed over my head like black water.
Usually daylight helps when I’ve had a bad night. The sun filters gray through the clouds (because I do live in the Pacific Northwest, after all) and I am reminded that whether or not I feel like shite there’s still work to do. Sometimes work is its own reward or at least certainly a distraction.
But there comes a point, in the editing and writing process, where two-three days of deep depression hit and I thrash like a foundered ship on racking waves. I swallow salt water, keep my eyes on the light, and strike out, hoping I’ll make it this time. It’s an article of faith because each time so far I’ve made it, but niggling doubt remains.
There are things I can do, of course. No depressing movies (more about this in a minute.) No depressing or angry music. (Yes, Lili. Rob Zombie is angry music, and you are NOT ALLOWED to listen to him until after the weekend. It’s strictly the Muppets and ES Posthumus for you.) No taking umbrage at anything anyone says, because I know my skin is thin as the very outer layer of an onion.
I think of this state as a necessary crawling into a hole to complete the saturation process before dormancy and illumination. (Stages of creativity: Inspiration, Saturation, Dormancy, Illumination. I know there’s others, but that’s the stripped-down process for me.)
This stage is right after the, “You can’t do that!” directed at a character and right before the “I’m so sick of this book I could just about kill each and every character in it.” (Note: I’m thinking this book might be the only one in which nobody dies. Oh, wait…I don’t think anyone dies in book 3 either. DAMMIT! Getting confused again…) I’m slogging through personal revisions on book 4, and right after that is a take-no-prisoners dive into the last half of book 5. Seriously, I’m going over that ridge, and I’m taking that ridge, and I’m going over anything that gets in my way. Point-blank.
On a related but not responsible note, last night the Sullen Teen and I watched When the Levees Broke. (He gets school credit for watching and writing a paper on it–a paper I have declared will be 500 words or more and WILL NOT be shoddily done. He also gets credit for museum trips. I’m thinking if I can take him to the opera for school it will be a fit revenge for Teenage Angst. The Princess might enjoy the opera too, though her heart belongs to ballet. But I digress.)
The documentary, in four acts, is four-plus hours long. And it is wrenching. I did not know, for example, that Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, and other states get royalties from the federal government for the natural gas and oil pumped from them. Louisiana, where 30% of our energy needs come from, does not. So all the oil and gas revenue they pump into the federal gov’t does NOT go back into their schools/infrastructure. Now why is this, and why do I have a sneaking suspicion that is a large reason why the Bush administration did not prioritise the rescue of New Orleans residents?
Yes, I know what will be brought up next. The evacuation. People were told to get out. But as I pointed out before during the catastrophe to a friend of mine, it takes money to evacuate. How were homeless people, poor people, carless people supposed to get the hell out?
There are still nameless bodies in New Orleans. There is still wreckage outside downtown. You’re telling me the richest country on earth, the country spending millions (if not billions) per month in Iraq, cannot get garbage picked up in outlying areas of New Orleans over a year after the storm? And the murder rate is still up because the federal government doesn’t give a rat’s patootie about funding the schools down there to give children an alternative to thuggery.
I thought we lived in America, you know. I thought the citizens of this country had a right to help after a national disaster that was not only forecast but also publicised to within an inch of its life. I’m sad to see that because the victims were mostly poor (Barbara Bush’s foot-in-mouth moment had a truth all its own, you know, just like Kanye West’s) and African-America, they were called “refugees” and treated like cattle until the publicity got too hot for the Bush Administration and the feds finally moved in to get some food and water to people. I’m saddened and disgusted by this all over again.
The DHM and the Princess watched some before the Princess and Little Prince were bundled off to bed. She held my hand tightly, and I asked her if she was sure she wanted to see. She nodded, with big eyes. I talked it over with her–about how, sometimes, we can’t do anything, but it’s our duty not to look away and not to forget. Heavy stuff for a little person, but after reassurance and discussion she proved the resilience of the young by announcing that she was going to bed, she had a new Archie comic to read. And she needed a Mommy kiss before she could settle down to reading it.
“Everything is better with a Mommy kiss,” she informed me.
I hope it always will be.
The morning’s not getting any bleaker, at least. I’ve got coffee soaking into my brain and a mighty mighty f-list to read, as well as a pile of work waiting for me that will shake me out of the doldrums and make me do something instead of laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting breaths, and struggling with the weight of depression like an old friend.
Lucky. I’m lucky. Gods grant I remember it.
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