Monthly Archives: March 2010

Portland most depressed?

By admin on March 14, 2010

Portland, Oregon is a special place for me. I studied my Master’s there and attended two residencies a year for three years enjoying both Spring and Autumn. Portland is a wonderful city on the west coast and it has just been determined as the most depressed city in America. Whatever state Portland is in (and you know I don’t mean Oregon here), I love that city:

Overall rank: 1
Depression rank: 1
Suicide rank: 12
Crime (property and violent) rank: 24
Divorce rate rank: 4
Cloudy days: 222
Unemployment rate (December 2008): 7.8%

50 American cities were rated by Business Week. Many factors were considered and those given most weighting were depression, suicide, unemployment and job loss, as well as crime rates.

The depression rate, my particular interest, was collated from drug company records of antidepressant sales*.

City to city across America, apples were pretty much compared to apples. These these damn lies and statistics have a fair basis.

Our search for happiness and happy places is an interesting preoccupation. I don’t deny I like being happy, I also rather enjoy wallowing, dosed up with unhappy. Unhappy is not necessarily bad, in my book. I like a Newtonian approach where each force is balanced by an then an equal and opposite force. I do wonder if one state can exist without the balancing other, maybe not always in the same being but within our fields of reach.

I’d like to be more accepting of happy and blue, deliriously delighted and depressed. All valid and valued – within reason and safely.

*Just a thought, if Portland has the highest antidepressant sales per capita wouldn’t that make the populous of the city less rather than more depressed? Am I as mad as a hatter to suggest that?

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Dreams come true

By admin on March 13, 2010

My sister has a theory you attract that which you fear. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, espouses a similar view, that you attract what you wish for. In both instances you receive what you believe, assuming that in the case of fears dread is a form of belief.

Who knows what to believe ?

It is easy to pooh pooh (as Madeline said to the tiger in the zoo). I would pooh pooh the thought of attracting what you fear except that there was ‘that’ dream…

Long ago, when Mottsu was here, I was haunted by a recurring dream. I dreamed the same dream for years, at least five years. I dreamed this dream a number of times before I realised it was being replayed regularly.

Funny, but not ha-ha-ha.

In the dream Mottsu had left me. Within the dream realm I recognised that I had been left, sometimes it is all about me. In dreams at least, I didn’t ever perceive that in leaving he had left altogether. He had left me.

So, as I was explaining, in the dream Mottsu had left. He had gone and (in the dream) I didn’t know why. The experience was distressing, I was distraught not understanding what had happened, why he had left… I cried and cried. My overwhelming memory of the dream is inconsolable sobbing.

Me weeping.

Some nights I would wake myself with a half formed dream wailing, a dull bawling noise. A strangled scream. Some nights Mottsu would wake me, rousing me from the nightmare and I was consoled by his presence.

When he did leave my haunting dream became my life. Of course I remembered the nightmare amid my daytime weeping, while living my worst dream.

We know more than we know we know, dreams provide an account of what is happening in one’s life that you’re not conscious of. C.J. Jung saw dreams as a window to the unconscious. Framed that way, I think depression may have caused Mottsu to leave me, long before his physical departure.

I don’t know.

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Another shade of blue

By admin on March 11, 2010

There is a building in my street that used to be painted blue, not any shade of blue but the most wonderful shade of blue. I constantly admired it. I recall I admired it to a point of being annoying.

I would skip down the street with Mottsu (and I not he) gasping in with excitement about discovery of the most marvellously coloured wall. Blue.

In appreciating that wall I would be flooded with appreciation for the life we shared.

“How lucky we are” I said.

“Can you even imagine the odds of us finding each other?” I said, “ …luck of the draw, a fluke of chance to be born here, to live with such privilege…”

“I feel so blessed, so lucky…” I said.

“We share such a beautiful life” I said.

“I love our life” I said.

Notice one person was doing all of the talking.

One of us was admiring our beautiful life and one was listening and nodding. One of us would wax lyrical about the wall of perfect blue. Who was I trying to convince?

He must have nodded, I can’t recall with certainty now. His response wasn’t enthusiastic, nor mean, merely weary of natter. Blue was something different for Mottsu than for me.

The building has been renovated and painted grey. It’s a similar shade but I miss the blue. My blue was different to his blue.

I like to remember this story. I feel silly about how often, and enthusiastically, I tried to convince him of our good fortune without ever noticing that he wasn’t quite with me.

I remind myself how difficult it was at times to live with someone who suffered depressive bouts, which isn’t to say it wasn’t difficult for Mottsu…

Different blue.

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