Saturday, Named after The God who ate his Children
March 7, 2009 § Leave a comment
The Swan Nebula, taken by the Hubble Telescope
They turned up the gravity in my body. There’s a switch for it.
I’m too depressed to work on my novel, or go out on this beautiful Saturday, or call anyone. I’ve already tried vodka, chocolate and trash fiction. I’m typing this sentence because I hope it will lead somewhere better and already I feel that little excitement in the words, like a dog when you take its leash off the hook. When I was a very young writer and the only things I knew for sure were the things I didn’t want to admit to anyone, I thought I could just play with words and phrases like paints, that the beauty of the sounds and associations were enough. If I’d been a musician—but I was much too lazy to be a musician—
There are reasons to be depressed and just as many not to be. My husband, after many years of marriage, suggested to me once that maybe the reasons came after the fact. I remember feeling defensive and embarrassed; mostly afraid I was nothing but a walking storm of unhappiness. And I didn’t even know what a terrible thing that is to be, that the weight of the world’s unhappiness has always been outrageous.
People have believed in astrology for thousands of years because it’s just common sense to think the planets are yanking us, swatting us into orbit, or collapsing on top of us. Nothing else is big enough to create such effects.
I would like someone to knock on my door and ask for help, preferably something physical. What’s the difference between that and calling my friends to see who would like help with something? Simply that I feel that to be asked would snap me out of this, while to offer would be an admission of need, and my need is too great and diffuse and primitive…it could only lead to me jumping on someone’s back and dragging them under with me.
Note to self: they can fight back.
Re: note to self: that’s what I’m afraid of.
It has calmed me to write this. A blog is an amazing thing. It’s not a letter requiring response. No one pays for it; no one is owed. Yet it’s a step outside the monotonous washing machine of diary writing. When you clip the leash on the dog’s collar what does it expect? Around the block, same old story. Better than nothing.
Mostly in the Afternoon 
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