Peg Kerr's Journal

Tonight's the winter solstice drum jam at the Cedar Cultural Center. Come see the firewalkers and help drum away the longest night of the year. Tickets available at the door, only $10. Kids under 10 are free!

A lot of thoughts have been swirling through my mind in the past month or so, and I've been thinking about trying to catch them and set them down in a post.

This past year, frankly, has been hard. Rob's layoff, the private medical stuff that Elinor Dashwood isn't talking about, the constant worries about money, and the return of my clinical depression. Through it all, I have done my best to keep the family going and to allow us to thrive, even, and there have definitely been bright spots, too: the joys we experience every day in raising two such wonderful girls, taking my bike outside for the first time in years, the miracle of the karate patron who gave me a scholarship so that I could continue to study, my loving partnership with Rob that has stood the test of hard times and feels stronger and more committed than ever, the support of my family and friends, including you, my dear friends list, my posse who always watches out for my back.

Yet, I still experience day-to-day life as a struggle, and the dementors have been extremely difficult lately. The new job is, hurray! a new job, but it certainly isn't bringing in the return we were led to expect (the recession is affecting sales at Rob's new store), and we are still on the extremely tightened belt budget. I experienced a real nosedive in my mood yesterday and sat down to write about it, to figure out what was really going on. When I actually ennumerated all the factors dragging down my moods, I came up with a list of about fifteen or so. What's more, I realized that many of my usual coping mechanisms for dealing with my depression when it gets bad were not available to me: no cell phone, so I can't call a friend, my computer at home is dead, so I can't easily do the computer stuff I enjoy or email. Dead broke, so I can't go out for a dinner (which I dearly would love to do after all the struggles to feed my family a meal they'll deign to eat) or a movie. I feel guilty of being too extravagent if I buy a lousy cup of coffee for myself. After almost a year of it, this sucks.

So it's no wonder that my mood was so low last night. I dutifully kitted up for sparring and went to the dojo and warmed up--and then I had to leave, because I just couldn't stop crying. I can't spar when the depression gets severe. Crud.

So: the various thoughts I've been mulling over the past several weeks. Some of it came from the retreat, some of it from various things I've read, conversations I've had, or insights that have come, particularly through the soulcollaging. THAT has been a great new tool, besides being lots of fun.

1. One thought I got from an article my sister sent to me. I can't remember the exact train of thought, but it lead to a question: imagine what your life would be like if you were not depressed. What would be your concerns, your goals, your joys, your day-to-day activities? What would you think about and try to do then? Once I started thinking about this, I realized how puzzling and strange this thinking felt. I suppose I feel about my depression as Gregor says Miles thinks about security considerations in Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar books: that would be like a fish thinking about water--it just never happens, because the water is always there.

2. Sister Josue at the retreat advised me to start listing my gratitudes every day. I've been doing that, and it has been helpful.

3. I picked up and skimmed a book in a gift shop (too broke to buy it but I took notes) by Gay Hendricks, called Five Wishes (Author's website is here). He encountered someone at party he really didn't want to attend, and they had a conversation which Hendricks called life-changing.

Imagine it's forty years from now, and you're on your deathbed the stranger said. Now, imagine that you look back at what you regret that you didn't get to do during your life. What would those regrets be?

Gay Hendricks thought about this. "I suppose . . .I would regret it if I didn't have a loving relationship with a woman who I adored and who adored me, and if I never had the opportunity to build a life of creativity and passion together with her."

And why is that important to you? the stranger asked.

As Hendricks thought about that, and explained, he started to understand what was holding him back, some communication issues that were present throughout all his life.

Good said the stranger. Now, turn that into a goal, in the present tense.

"I . . . want to have a loving relationship with a woman who I adore and who adore me, and to build a life of creativity and passion together with her."

Good said the stranger. Now, where are you on achieving that goal?

Gay Hendricks thought about that. The stranger smiled. Get busy

So I've been thinking about that, ever since skimming the book. I thought about my relationship with Rob and with the girls. No, I couldn't see them as a regret. I have built a loving partnership with Rob, and despite my own insecurities, I truly think that I have been a loving and good mother to the girls. They are turning out well. This dovetails well with what Sister Josue told me to do with my gratitudes. I do realize that I have much in my life to be happy about (which makes the depression particularly insiduous and annoying, of course, that it insists on sticking around, even when all sources of happiness have not been leached from one's life.) Note, the serendipity of discovering this book the same week that I am thinking about trying to visualize a life without depression. Gay Hendricks is getting at the same quality from a different approach: imagine how you can build a life where you can look back with no regrets.

Well, what about the writing? Wasn't I always saying that the fact that I have stopped writing fiction is a big regret of mine?

So I thought about it. No matter whichever way I thought about it, the only thing I could think that I would say as a regret about writing on my deathbed would be, I regret that I never wrote a beautiful book that truly moved people, that changed their lives.

But I don't need to say that. I have written a book I truly think is beautiful, that has changed people's lives.

And that was this week's blinding insight, friends list. It's true: I never wanted to write fiction to make a pile of money or win prestigious awards. It would have been nice if it had happened, but those goals never drove me. Maybe the reason I've stopped writing fiction isn't because I've lost my creativity, or because I'm too busy with the kids or I fritter away too much time on the Internet. Maybe I've stopped writing fiction because I've already achieved all that I wanted to achieve when I started writing.

Let me tell you, that is a very new thought. I will have to cogitate about that for awhile.

4. The last piece in all this is what I learned at the church service about Fiona's Mexico mission trip. The church went to the orphanage Casa Hogar Elim, which is run by a remarkable woman all the children call "Mama Lupita." The orphanage began in 1986 when Mama Lupita took in four children of an alcoholic father who had abandoned them (the mother had died), even though she had four children of her own. She kept taking in more and more children, somehow making ends meet through donations. She has made it her mission to turn these orphans' lives around, giving them food and education in a neighborhood where many children suffer horrible poverty. She never turns any child away. Mama Lupita can certainly look back on her life on her deathbed and honestly say, "My life truly made a difference for so many people."

I need to do some more thinking about the questions Gay Hendricks asks in his book (see his website here). My thoughts are hazy so far, but there's definitely something there, something about helping children, promoting literacy issues, environmental concerns. Something about wanting to travel a lot more. And there's definitely a STRONG message of I would definitely regret it if I spent forty years of my life typing paperwork for attorneys in insurance litigation--that's something I absolutely must address. I need to think more of what it would be like to live a life free of depression. I need to do more soulcollaging cards.

I need to get the damned computer fixed so I can use my iPhoto program to make more soulcollaging cards.

Edited to add: This post reminds me of one of the poems in Edgar Lee Masters' cycle of poems Spoon River Anthology, the epitaph for Fiddler Jones:

Fiddler Jones

THE EARTH keeps some vibration going
There in your heart, and that is you.
And if the people find you can fiddle,
Why, fiddle you must, for all your life.
What do you see, a harvest of clover?
Or a meadow to walk through to the river?
The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands
For beeves hereafter ready for market;
Or else you hear the rustle of skirts
Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove.
To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust
Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth;
They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy
Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.”
How could I till my forty acres
Not to speak of getting more,
With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos
Stirred in my brain by crows and robins
And the creak of a wind-mill—only these?
And I never started to plow in my life
That some one did not stop in the road
And take me away to a dance or picnic.
I ended up with forty acres;
I ended up with a broken fiddle—
And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories,
And not a single regret.

No doubt more will be added, and various cuts will be rearranged. But it's a great list so far, some of it from my own collection, but much of it built by help from my friends here on LiveJournal. Thank you again to all of you who have sent me music:

[Song name] - [Artist]
[Album]

( Here's the list )

It was great. I busted my top, a velvet bustier, from dancing too hard (a plastic stay burst out of the seam and started poking into my hip). I was wearing this jacket, so I took it off and danced in just my (thankfully rather nice looking) black bra with the jacket over it. No one seemed to notice.

Oh, yeah, and pants, too. Get your mind out of the gutter, you perverts.

The firewalkers were excellent, great fun to watch. Playful and sensuous and lithe and athletic. And sexy. In between their demonstrations, we danced as the drummers drummed. I left, reluctantly, at 11:00, since I have my red belt test tomorrow. I left it to minnehaha B. and K. and jbru to keep the party running properly without me.

Blessings to you on this darkest night of the year. I lit a candle on the stage before I left, and I tried to imagine the brighter days coming soon.









( Click here to see some videos of the firewalkers )

I got this meme from minnehaha:

Comment on this post. I will choose seven userpics from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are using them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so others can play along.

Here were the icons minnihaha K. asked me about:

This is from the movie Sense and Sensibility (of the Jane Austen novel of the same name) and it pictures the actress Emma Thompson in the part of Elinor Dashwood. Throughout the book (and movie) the reserved Elinor ("Sense") stands in contrast to her sister, the romantic passionate Marianne ("Sensibility"). At the course of the novel, Marianne, who has always rather looked down upon Elinor for what she terms her coldness, learns that Elinor feels just as passionately as Marianne herself, except that she (unlike Marianne) exercises discipline over her emotions for a variety of reasons: because it is more honorable, more temperate, and because she does not wish to give her family and friends pain when she herself is hurting. My emotions have always been a difficult part of my own character to manage, and much of the process of my maturation has been learning how to handle them appropriately. I have adopted what I call my "Elinor Dashwood" mode (and I use this icon) to describe those times when my emotions may be tumultuous and painful, but I do not feel it is appropriate to make a parade of them, or to speak directly in my LiveJournal of what is bothering me. See this entry where I began the metaphor, and all of my entries tagged "Elinor Dashwood" here.

and Both of these icons (as well as my default icon) are representations of what I have come to call the Holy Tree. I first became aware of the term by reading Tolkien: he loved trees dearly, and they became central to his mythology, as depicted in The Silmarillion. (In the first manifestation of the world, there was no sunlight or moonlight. Instead, there were the Two Holy Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, from which shone golden and silvery light.) This idea has mingled in my imagination with my favorite poem of all, Yeat's The Two Trees. (I was introduced to it by Loreena McKennitt, who sang it as a song on her album The Mask and the Mirror.) The poet speaks of a magical tree which grows within the human heart, and contrasts that with a false vision of a blasted, barren tree, which may be seen when demons hold up their bitter glass (a mirror). To me, this poem is about one of the central struggles of my life, and it words it so beautifully. I am too apt to believe the demons who hold up the bitter glass, and show me a vision of a blasted and barren tree. I have been trying to see more clearly the holy tree, which the poet assures me grows within my own heart. The song is also a damn good description of cognitive therapy, one of the best I've ever read. When depression gets its claws into me, my tormentors are, indeed, the "ravens of unresting thought," who shake their ragged wings, alas. The key, the poet says, is to turn the eyes away from the bitter glass, with its false vision of the blasted tree, back to the holy tree within the heart. The first tree icon, highly stylized, I posted because I was considering it as a possible tattoo (it was on the cover of a devotional booklet distributed by my church). I still love the design, but I know it would have to be simplified and I am not sure I will ever do it (the idea of my getting a tattoo does horrify some members of my family). The second tree icon was taken from a watercolor done by Tolkien himself, picturing the Mallorn trees of the Golden Wood (from The Fellowship of the Ring).

This candle is an evocation of another important concept from Tolkien: A light in dark places, when all other lights go out. (This is a reference to the Vial of Galadriel, which was a source of light to Frodo in the cave where he encountered the spider Shelob. I use this icon when the depression seems to be waxing and the Light seems to be waning. I use it to remind myself that there is still light there, and I need to remember and draw courage from that.

This is a line from Pride and Prejudice, something said by the insufferable, bossy Lady Catherine DeBourgh. I swiped it from www.pemberley.com. I thought it might be good to use when I wanted to comment on other people's journals, although since I swiped it without permission I feel guilty about having it and so I haven't used it that often. It was actually these Pemberley icons that gave me the idea of creating my Tolkien icons.

This is a picture of the ice palace in St. Paul, taken from the air, at night. I was trying to write a fantasy novel, where the central character was the architect designing it. Unfortunately, I lost my way, and the book has been abandoned for now.

I've started an entry several times about Virginia Tech and erased it. Am too heartsick to try to cobble together anything worth reading. I've read a number of commentaries re: creative writing teachers and mental illness and Korea and Christopher Bishop and gun control (please, God, let's not start that argument here; I just can't stomach it) and various things people have said, both insightful and incredibly stupid. Enough. Enough. I can't and won't add anything to all the words said on the subject.

The taxes are not done; we filed the extension. At least it looks as though we will be getting a refund instead of paying in. I hope that they will be completed and the appalling mess on my office floor of tax-related paperwork will be cleaned up soon.

I cannot find the digital camera. I was the last to download it, and I am 100% sure I left it on the charger, because that is where I ALWAYS leave it. It isn't there now. I have to have it to take belt test pictures this coming Saturday. Argh. Rob promises to look for it tomorrow morning.

Things just seem dreadfully dark today. Sleep will hopefully help.

Today is the first day of spring.

I have survived the winter.

I could hear the drums even out in the lobby. Perhaps a hundred people, perhaps more, sat in a circle, hands pounding on a huge variety of drums: djembes, congas, dununs, and shaking bells and shakers. A woman came forward with a singing bowl. She walked slowly, following the beat of the drums, chiming the side of the bowl. She called forth air, fire, water and earth, and women representing each of these figures came out and danced. Other dancers dressed in white came out, holding candles, which were used to light torches, and then the fire dances began.

( Click here for pictures )

The fire dancers came out about once every hour and danced for us, strutting, sweating, laughing, throwing torches and catching them and spinning them around, feet pounding in time to the beat. They were sinuous and sweaty, powerful and mesmerizing. Meanwhile, the drumbeats thundered on and on, even when the dancers retired, rumbling the ground under our feet, sounding in the blood and the bone, like the heartbeat of the earth itself. I drummed for awhile when someone let me use his instrument. I've never done it before, and I managed to jam a finger somehow, so I stopped and relinquished the drum again. Anyway, I preferred to dance. I danced for a couple of hours, grinning with joy, sometimes holding my finger to the pulse in my neck so that I danced in time with my own heartbeat, sometimes twirling so that the torchlight and the fairy lights slurred in my vision into tracks of whirling orange, yellow and red. The smell of incense mingled with the tang of the fuel from the torches. The room stayed dark, except for the fire, and the candles set on the altar on the stage, and the black lights that illuminated the scarves that the jugglers kept flying. That was all right; we weren't afraid of the dark, but sang out to it, keeping the drum beat going to call forth the light that we knew was still there waiting for us, once we danced our way through the longest night. On and on it went, utterly powerful and confident and sexy and primal, and I was stunned by the waves of joy I felt welling up inside myself in response. Joy from knowing that I have made it to this darkest night and that I know I will make it through it. Joy that the depression that I suffered from so last year has lifted, because of the walks I have taken every day in the sun.

I knew that the drummers would drum throughout the entire night and I wanted to stay. But I was tired, and I knew I needed to get up early, so I said goodbye at about 11:30.

I could still hear and feel the drumbeat thrumming through my veins as I drove home.

I definitely plan to come back next year.

Edited to add: ( Click here to see videos ).

Light a candle
Sing a song
Say that the shadows
Shall not cross
Make an oblation
Out of all you've lost
In the longest night
Gather friends
Cast your hopes
Into the fire
As it snows
Stare at God
Through the dark windows
Of the longest night
Of the year
A night that seems like a lifetime
If you're waiting for the sun
So why not sing to the night time
And the burning stars up above?
Come with drums
Bells and horns
Come in silence
Come forlorn
Come like miner
To the door
Of the longest night
Deep in the stillness
Deep in the cold
Deep in the darkness
A miner knows
That there is a diamond
In the soul
Of the longest night
Of the year
A night that seems like a lifetime
If you're waiting for the sun
So why not sing to the night time
And the burning stars up above?
Maybe peace hides in a storm
Maybe winter's heart is warm
Maybe Light itself is born
In the longest night
In the longest night

-- Peter Mayer, Midwinter

A blessed and bright Solstice to you all.

Happy St. Lucia Day to everyone from Fiona and Delia!

Delia St. Lucia Day 2006

Fiona and Delia St. Lucia Day 2006

(Mmmm, the rolls were good.)

Edited to add: check out what mrissa has to say about Santa Lucia day here. She includes her recipe for lussekatter, the traditional buns served on Santa Lucia Day.