Grace-Notes #4, 1/28/07

Natalie Costanza-Chavez

Grace Notes

gracenotes@comcast.net

Doc (the dog)

     Depression looks like a hundred masks hanging on a wall – faces all different and varied – and any one of them can wear you. This fact eluded me at first.

     When I saw myself in a mirror I thought “But you get up, and dress yourself, and have a job – you can’t be depressed.”  I was wrong. 

     My mask had me waking up at 4:00 in the morning, blood jetting sharp with fear.  The anxiety was so deep it left me weak and small and always without any sense of breath.  To combat this, I went numb and by that I mean my world turned colorless and deep grey.  I was a slump. I was a hull.  I was a dry bean.  I went about my duties – I was single, teaching, healing from a surgery - as my friends worried. But I hid the depth of my spin and fall from them. Especially, I hid it from myself.

      Depression presents itself in many disguises – each person wears it differently. But one thing remains constant – you can’t find movement of any kind, in any direction.  You are frozen. 

     My house was on Pearl Street.  It smelled of anise and pine.  We walked each day, a loyal dog and I, to City Park. Her stick was tucked on the top of the rock wall at the North East entrance.  She waited, poised and taut, for me to fetch it down.  I threw the stick far over the green field, feeling each bone in my arm heavy with the effort of rising, and she became a flurry and a dart. 

     I followed.  One foot in front of the other – repeating a mantra of “Do one thing today to make it better” as I stared down at my feet moving. Some days the one thing was the walk. Some days it was more.  And that’s the trick.

     The small things each day will eventually move you through. The point is the movement.  

Those small things were the hardest I’ve ever done. 

      I moved toward a doctor.  She reminded me of things to hold on to and listened as I muddled and sorted and mulled.  She gave me information about medication: antidepressants. I said no for a long time. Then I said yes. The medicine helped my brain to straighten out its own chemicals faster than I could have done it through sheer will or wishing. I was thankful for the help. 

     The medicine did not cure me. It did not make me “happy” or “different” or “drugged”. It certainly didn’t take the work of healing away. But, it helped a crumb.  Picture this: Halloween.  A pumpkin carved and lit and placed on a blue step.  I walk away toward the street, turn, and look back.  I see the pumpkin in the near dark, one peck of flame wavering inside.  The medication allowed me to notice the flame – movement.

     I still had to do all the work: find the pumpkin, carve it, light it, carry the weight of it. But on the porch where I would have seen only grey – I now saw the orange flick of flame – the beginnings of light – a small, small, nudge toward learning again to remember joy.

     And learning again to remember joy is the point of healing.  Like the masks we wear, our paths out from under them and back into ourselves are different.  But you will see light again.

    I realize now, I should have trusted the moon. The days and nights passing were helping me gather.  One step from bed, one step toward the park, one step for a dog – or a son, or a woman or any love that you have – yourself even – yourself – each step was movement.  God had not left.  I raised my arm and his shadow followed.  I know this now.

     Find your flame – and sometimes this is very hard.  Sometimes you will need help. Sometimes the looking can take almost all you have left.  Look anyway.  God’s reaching as hard, and as far and as wide as you can even imagine. He’s got you coming and going.  He’s got you every step of the way.