DRAFT #1.5

We couldn't stop sneezing. It was early spring in San Francisco and our noses were blooming. We trudged across roller boogie circle, past several greenhouses and a huge statue of Don Quixote. Arriving at our customary picnic spot, we found it covered in Bud Lite bottle shards and goose droppings, afog with weed smoke and doddering ladybugs.

Last year there was Shakespeare in that meadow over there, but this year there's not. Instead a performance art lady smacks her white-leather miniskirted ass and says stuff in Latin. Her boyfriend combs her hair and translates but his voice is a whisper so no one knows what's being said and onlookers pretend to listen for longer than necessary.

A teenager gangles by. He looks like a question mark. "Ass-smacker" he says and his mouth opens hippopotamus.

I look into your eyes and say "This is nothing like it was before."

You tug at your jacket sleeve and try to figure out what this means. My hand joins yours on the sleeve and holds on.

The teenaged boy has just fallen over sideways and digs a Doc Marten heel into loose soil seeking a toehold and a way back up.

I send energy in his direction, I don't know why, I always do when someone's fallen, as though somehow my feeble brainwaves might buoy them up again. One of a dozen rituals I use to syncopate time. "That!" the social worker stapled the air "is called obsessive compulsive disorder!"

"Cool" my mom said, scraping off what was left of the silver nail polish on her thumbnail. My mom. Always supportive.

"What is obsessive compelsive disorder?" my 10-year-old self asked.

"It's nothing," she said. She shook the social worker's hand and pulled me out of the office. It was time for math class. I hated math class. The teacher yelled and I felt bad for her. I didn't understand why. The kids yelled. I didn't see their point. A bell rang and the hallway filled with elbows and backpacks, teeth, hair, knees, bubblegum and b.o. Another sign of obsessive compelsive disorder? "Let's go to the movies" my mom said and I trailed behind her, shoulder brushing twitching shoulders as locker transactions were completed, sealed with metallic slams and clicks, clatters.

I bumped my head as we ducked into the car. "That! was all I needed." I mimed mature exasperation.

My mother laughed, reached over to hold my forehead and examine the scratch. Laughter mends is what I used to think. I had to take home economics and we were learning to sew. Mending. I liked the sound. My brain traveled on. You've got obsessions it told itself, before contemplating popcorn. "It's nothing" my mom said, "nothing."

We were on the blanket, Dan and I, wrestling. It was three years ago just before Easter, just before Passover. We were both 23 years old. He was torturing me with Chicago songs. "I'm embarrassed for you," I said. "Why?" "You know all the words, every lyric." "I don't find that embarrassing." "Exactly," I said, "which is why I have to be embarrassed for you. For both of us, really. I think I have a concussion. I feel stupid. Sing something else, please." He did.

His hands were icy, my nose ran, the blanket was frayed and faded, covered in dog fur and coffee stains. We laughed a lot, had friends in common, hated the same bands. Nothing between us was simple, but it was easy until it wasn't.

They say football is a brutal sport. It will hurt your brain and confuse you. I feel the same way about badminton.

Nothing is the same. We got married last Wednesday in an old bank building, a federal reserve. Three hundred people attended. There were cherry blossoms, DJs, a wedding cake topped with the usual plastic bride and groom figurines housed inside a chocolate and caramel jail cell.

Notice she said marriage.

Who's married?

She is.

She who?

The writer.

Ah, so she must be unhappy.

Yes.

And she must have had obsessive-compelsive order.

Obsessive compulsive disorder.

I'm afraid so, yes.

And her mother? Is it true?

What?

Did her mother really wear silver nail polish?

It must be true.

Why?

She wrote it.

Ah yes. Well then, her mother was ahead of her time, wearing silver fingernail polish.

Yes must have been.

And the jail on the wedding cake what do you imagine it respresents?

Well I don't have to imagine, I know.

You do?

Of course!

It represents the jailing of the writer by the readers' expectations.

Ah-ha! No but I think you're wrong there.

Jail, prison. Ball-and-chain. Loss of freedom. Marriage as imprisonment. No no it must mean that she's unhappy in her marriage.

Well then why is the jail constructed of caramel and chocolate?

Hmm well ...

Those are delicious!

They are, but not in excess. At first marriage is sweet and then when it grows sweeter still it begins to cloy.

So she's oversated?

Exactly!

But she wrote her first play featuring married characters when she was 19.

Yes, so?

She wasn't married then.

Remarkable! You must be thinking of someone else!

I don't think so.

Nonsense! Attend the text!

counting blessings, gratitude

thank you fam, friends, nature, activism, comedy, music, poetry, books, aminals, spinach salads, dancing, y(mca), goodhumored strangers, japantown, drawing, weekly glass or two of wine, buddha learnings, meditations, practices, wishing trees. without you i'd have left this place long ago. all blessings!

Hat's off to you, Mr. President. No easy time, that's for sure.

Being undepressed doesn't mean you won't feel sad. You'll still feel sad, at least some of the time. So it goes. Be patient with yourself.

part of a letter re depression, written to a friend in response to a review of a book she recommended (one she says doesn't accurately represent the book).

realizing i usually think in terms of a society's dominant biases as these are pretty much the views most people act on, if they act at all. pretty sure society's dominant bias about mental illness is that it is a failure of will in almost all cases. the truth is far more complex than that, as you've pointed out. unfortunately, what most people will likely believe they've learned from that review is that depression isn't a real disease. and at broad and deep levels the stigma of mental illness will continue on.... also belief that depression and other illnesses are within an individual's control lets those not affected by mental illness off the hook -- that is, they can continue to blame the victim for the illness. this will make people who don't suffer from a mood disorder feel better about looking down on those who do. which is a shame, because many depressed people are quite kind, sometimes smart, funny, creative people who have valuable things to contribute to society.

we lost more than one of these people too soon, to suicide. david foster wallace comes immediately to mind, of course; there are many others.