freelancing – Kana's Chronicles

Books & Reading, Recovery, Work & Job, Writing

Bilbo’s Birthday (or: the Baggins-ian Calendar Proposition)

Posted on September 23, 2022September 24, 2022 by Kana Smith

Yesterday was Bilbo Baggins’s birthday.

It’s the only fictional-character-birthday I know, and not because I’m a big Tolkien nerd (though I am), but because it’s also my sister’s birthday. Just before my own birthday earlier in the month (or as I like to think of it: the annual reminder from my mother about what LABOR day REALLY means!) I read a piece referring to September as the fresh start of the new year for many pre-Gregorian-calendar cultures.

That feels right to me.

Maybe it’s because my personal calendar turns over its “counter” in September; maybe it’s because the rhythm of school-years imbued my early decades of calendar-use; or maybe it’s because I tend to start things at this time of year.

Case in point: my Blog’s (11th) birthday is today.

In its early years I posted several times a week—a frequency facilitated by the fact that I was freelance-writing for a living, i.e. always at the computer, and when I hit a wall and needed a brain-break, the most natural draw was the open browser-tab with my FUN writing in it. In recent years I’ve drifted away, and back, and away again… and today I notice that my “back-agains” arose in autumn or winter, every time. My creative life broadens as day-length dwindles. I’ve never made that connection until just now, counterintuitive at first blush… but in the next beat, I felt its truth.

My job, too, has a seasonal rhythm. Last week’s rodeo, the Pendleton Round-Up, marked an end to the months where a “day off” might mean only five work-hours instead of nine to fourteen. This week I’m filling our RV sites with monthly residents, traveling workmen arriving for construction on a nearby wind farm, and the processing of guests (phone call, reservation, questions, email, park map, check-in, orientation, more questions, parking, hookup, other questions, conversation, check-out) will drop from the turnover of a thousand guests a month to just a few dozen. You could say our “work-week” is organized on an annual scale: Spring as “Monday”, Summer as “Tuesday-to-Thursday”, Fall as “casual Friday,” and Winter—long-awaited and hard-earned—is more or less our weekend.

Well how fortuitous! The circannual rhythm of my Creative cycle may actually be synced with a job where I have TIME, just when I might actually be most disposed to (literally) make something of it. The purple index card taped to my roll-top desk just above my screen is my reminder:

Time is the currency of your art. In this transaction … writing accepts no form of payment other than your time. “
~Paulette Perhach

a writer's reminder taped to her desk: quote by Paulette Perhach that "time is the currency of your art"... — there it is: a purple reminder

A person can BE A WRITER without publishing books you’ve heard of (or even, as in my case, published in books you’ve never heard of). A person can BE A WRITER without publishing anything at all, ever. It’s not the publishing that “makes” a writer—it’s the act of writing. So what a person can’t do… is be a writer if she’s Not Writing. In high school I lettered in cross-country, but (for several decades now) it would be inaccurate to say I AM a runner. Same goes, if I don’t engage in the act of writing.

"A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God." quote by Sidne Sheldon — [it’s my own graphic—sticker/magnet at RedBubble if you like it too]

But. Have you ever seen a visual aid of air-flow being deflected around an aerodynamic vehicle or shape?

That’s exactly like my brain’s response to a blank screen: it veers to the side so smoothly I don’t even notice I’ve been redirected.

I am really skilled–disgustingly skilled–at sitting down “to write” and then tripping down a rabbit-hole of writing-related-activity that is still Not Writing. I might be fiddling with settings or images on the blog, or fussing with my writing area, or (my most frequent offender) looking something up for the piece I’m “working on.” This summer I wanted to come up with a visual detail to add texture to a scene (a Manhattan street in 1841) and I ended up spending two days on historic maps and buildings and businesses and newspapers—finally pulled myself up, midway through reading the script of a play that had been onstage at the time… In two days at the computer, I had written one sentence. Framed as entertainment, it’s fine—I get a kick out of that kind of thing. But in terms of productivity? Fail!

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Family, Writing

Legos—Did You Know?

Posted on May 9, 2017May 10, 2017 by Kana Smith

on a scale of one to stepping on a lego, how much pain are you in? As a parent, Legos were my least favorite toys to step on barefoot. Did you know that a Lego can withstand over 4,000 Newtons of force? That’s why the Lego always wins when you step on it.

But that’s really the only drawback to Legos. (Well, that and the price of Legos these days—it’s nearly as painful to pay for them as to step on them.) The reason why Legos are so awesome is summed up in this description, from Wikipedia: “Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.” Lego is the ultimate imagination-toy.

Lego castle 1980s — This was my favorite set.

Did you know that there are over 915 million ways to combine six basic 2×4 Lego bricks?

Growing up, my favorite set was a castle compilation of all-gray bricks, complete with hinges to make the requisite drawbridges and swinging doors to hidden passages. Legos usually come with a “construction plan”—and I’m sure mine did, though I don’t remember it… because the real fun is inventing your own stuff out of the possibility of all those pieces.

Lego Jack Sparrow Indiana Jones — Jack & Indie—two of my favorite characters in Lego!

In retrospect, my castle set was pretty simplistic, in part because my Lego-play predated the licensing agreements that have brought us Lego Harry Potter, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, Lego Marvel comics…

Just listing them makes me want to sit down on the floor and play. My son’s earliest Lego sets were pirates—any guesses why? Yup, Mommy wanted to play with them. (Did you know that the name “Lego” comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means “play well”?) Continue reading “Legos—Did You Know?” →

Mental Health

The Science of Smiles

Posted on May 2, 2017May 3, 2017 by Kana Smith

Okay, I have to admit my body is not yet accustomed to day-long shifts standing on concrete. Or more accurately, it’s not yet re-adjusted to that… When I owned and ran a restaurant the days were a lot longer, and sure, they wore me out—but they didn’t make my muscles sore like they are this week.

That’s right, I have sore muscles from cashiering—how goofy is that?

Compared to sitting on my couch with laptop and feet up, freelance writing, Home Depot is proving to be a workout. Given the variety (and sometimes size) of the items people are bringing to my register, there’s a little bit of gymnastics involved with my hand-held scanner… And I end the day with dirt under my fingernails and a splinter or two… And that mild ache that tells me I was actually doing something with my day.

I’m actually finding that satisfying—though nowhere near as satisfying as the number of smiles I get to “collect” in a day. Some people prove a challenge, but I like a challenge—can I get a smile out of them? Usually, yes.

Home Depot plant cart When I don’t have a line at the register, I stand out in the aisle to let people know the register is open, smiling at the people walking past. It’s almost amusing to see the faces going by, switching on their smiles one by one as they make eye contact and respond to the smile I’m giving them. I was so intrigued I had to look this up: research says smiles actually are contagious. (Smiling reflexively and responsively to another smile is an involuntary and instinctive reaction stemming from the cingulate cortex, if you wanted to know…)

I find there’s also a scientific explanation for why I get such a charge out of smile-collecting… Seeing someone else smile at you doesn’t only trigger a responsive smile, it also directly triggers the brain’s “reward” center. And then when you smile, your body releases some of those “feel-good” chemicals that give you reason to smile. All in all, it’s a pretty nifty self-perpetuating feel-good system. (God is GOOD at design! I wonder how many more mental-health meds I’d need if I smiled less…)

“default setting”… Yup, I’m sitting on my couch blogging and smiling

This is where I think I’m particularly suited for the job of customer service… my face’s “default setting” is a smile—not a big grin, but definitely a smile—so at least that’s one set of muscles that’s not sore from unaccustomed use.

And a default-smile definitely keeps the smile-cycle going for interactions on the job. It’s what I missed in the solitude of freelancing—I literally do sit here with my default smile, sometimes even when I’m writing about something awful (today’s topic: laser vaginal rejuvenation, ick)… but I don’t get the “charge” of return-smiles during a day at the computer. On the other hand, my feet are enjoying a break on the couch-recliner this morning, so it’s all good!

Okay, I’d better get on with that freelance article. We’ll see if the default-smile lasts through that topic!

Lists

Things About My 2016 (List#6)

Posted on December 31, 2016January 5, 2017 by Kana Smith

The New-Year mark is a time for lists, even for people who aren’t as obsessed with them as I am. In the spirit of “contained chaos” (see yesterday’s list and my underwear drawer) this is a rather random list of “Things About 2016,” as I experienced it… It’s not a comprehensive list of all the “big things” that happened, and it’s not a recap of my Facebook Timeline—it’s just things that stand out about the year as a whole… Continue reading “Things About My 2016 (List#6)” →

Lists, Mental Health

Entering the Lists

Posted on December 11, 2016December 12, 2016 by Kana Smith

list3 My notebook is bent, battered, and buckled, every kind of abused but bruised. The covers crease from frequent folding, and tags & stickies protrude from its pages. I’ve had it for all of three weeks.

The notebook serves as a journal, but it its pages have also filled with sketches, blog-post brainstorms, A.A. Stepwork, notes from group sessions and church sermons, quotes and definitions related to writing-topics, comparisons of health insurance plans, my checkbook register, ledgers tracking my freelance writing pay and my hotspot data-usage… And LISTS. Lots of lists.

Some to-do lists are sprinkled through there, but those aren’t the most common denomination. The weirder ones don’t have an obvious purpose. Since I keep making them, though, I surely hope there’s something accomplished in the writing of them. I’m just not entirely sure WHAT. Continue reading “Entering the Lists” →

Family, Recovery

“Life”—a Revised Edition

Posted on September 14, 2014September 14, 2014 by Kana Smith

Milton-Bradley's "Life" board game — Milton-Bradley’s “Life” board game: plastic cars and “people”-pegs and a straightforward, pre-plotted Road of Life

My sister and I used to play the Milton-Bradley board game Life, moving a plastic car along the predetermined path (adding pink or blue pegs to represent spouse and kids), and marking the “mileposts” of American living by paying or collecting money for various events. I suppose this game is intended to represent how life is “supposed” to proceed—go to college, get a job, marry, buy a house, buy insurance, buy stocks, get a dog, get a promotion, fix your roof, pay off student loans, pay property taxes, pay income taxes, pay for kids’ education… And eventually retire—either to the Poor Farm or to the Millionaires’ Estates…

In retrospect, it’s not a very interesting game. A player’s individual outcome depends entirely on the spin of the wheel (and the specific “events” on which the plastic car lands), rather than resulting from any choices or actions on the player’s part. What is interesting about this game (again, in retrospect) is the picture it paints of American assumptions—specifically, the events that are expected to compose a Life. (That, and the fact that a player’s success is ultimately measured in money.)

Life at 30: this pair of "pegs" in my back seat, and the rest of life looking pretty predictable... — Life at 30: this pair of “pegs” in my back seat, and the road ahead looking pretty predictable… Ha!

I didn’t question those expectations as a kid counting board-game squares with a game-piece populated by pink-and-blue pegs, and still wasn’t questioning them when I turned thirty. After all, I seemed to be squarely set on that standardized and circumscribed track—complete with husband, house, and a pair of “pegs” (one pink, one blue) in the back seat of my minivan… But this week (my 40th birthday!) I find myself reflecting on the unexpected twists my life has taken in the course of the last decade.

Ten years ago I probably imagined I could write my life-story, at least in its outlines, all the way to the end without waiting to live it. I didn’t foresee any drastic deviations from the proscribed path, and that vision didn’t vary much from the Milton-Bradley version. But God, in his infinite wisdom and humor, had other ideas. (As my A.A. Sponsor says: “If you want to make God laugh… Make PLANS!”) Instead of the conventional course I had calculated, my map of the last decade consists of curves and curlicues, spirals and swivels, U-turns and dead ends and leaps of Faith… I have definitely departed from the predestined path of the presumptive game-board.

winding road sign — so much for the straightforward road!

I’ve been entertaining myself today by imagining a game-board re-write to reflect the reality of my thirties. It’s altogether a richer journey than my designs of a decade ago, but not at all what I’d imagined… Here’s what some of the squares would say in a “Kana” edition of Life…

[We begin at Thirty, with stay-home-Motherhood and two small children…]

You hit your limit on watching Sesame Street and decide to get back in the (outside-the-home) workforce. Take a full-time job teaching English and science for the state-sponsored online high school.
Spend a week aboard a sailboat in the San Juan Islands, earning your sailboat Skipper’s Papers. Charter a sailboat Christmas week in the British Virgin Islands with two small sailors-in-training.
Defend your Master’s Thesis in Creative Writing and publish some poetry. Discover that you prefer writing nonfiction! (Although your Master’s program doesn’t offer a “nonfiction” emphasis, this bit of self-knowledge will come in handy down the road, with the invention of the Blog!)
Move into an administrative job as Curriculum Director for Idaho’s online high school. Fly around the country giving presentations, publish academic articles, co-author a book chapter, and establish a national reputation in your field.
Move out of your house and your marriage and reimagine yourself as a Single Mom.
barefoot at the helm… trying to take control of a new life

Take your first-ever solo vacation: another live-aboard sailing week to earn advanced sailing certifications.
Buy a house of your own, to be christened “The Gingerbread House” by your kids. Demonstrate to your kids (and to yourself) that you can mow your own lawn, change your own flat tire, and generally Take Care of Things by yourself.
As Taking Care of Things takes its toll, your alcoholic tendencies get increasingly out of hand. You get sent home from work and suspended, pending a review by the Board of Directors after a month of outpatient rehab treatment.
Having been given a generous second chance at the job, you blow it almost immediately and get sent home again, this time with a termination letter.
Go to jail for Driving Under the Influence. (Do not pass “Go,” definitely do not collect $200. There is no get-out-of-jail-free card.) Embark on a year with suspended license (get to know the public bus routes!) and brace yourself for two years of Probation and peeing-in-cups.
a gingerbread house on Rehab-Eve

Two days before Christmas, call your ex and ask him to take the kids so you can check yourself into an inpatient rehab center. Spend the evening building a gingerbread house with your kids and then drop them off with their Christmas presents. The artificial Christmas tree will never make it out of the box.
Check yourself into Rehab, subject yourself to a strip-search and confiscation of your toiletries (including feminine hygiene products—although why you need to be protected from those is a mystery). Meet the Old Hawai’ian Guy, introduced by the ward-nurse as “the guy who takes care of everybody.” Engage him in a gripe-session about having to ask a male nurse for your “female supplies;” because this is your first-ever conversation with him, he will dub you “The Maxi-Pad Lady.” Spend Christmas day constructing the exact same gingerbread house you just built with your kids, playing badminton in the hospital cafeteria, and singing a karaoke duet (with the Old Guy) of the Beach Boys’ Kokomo. Fall asleep clutching your childhood teddy bear, hating Rehab, and missing your kids.
“Spiritual Journey”

Check out of Rehab several weeks later with no earthly idea what to do with your life. Offer to rent a room to the Old Hawai’ian, who needs a new place. Begin addressing the “what-next” question as a team. Get your first tattoo: a honu (turtle) with the Hawai’ian words Huaka’i Kapono—a reference to Recovery that translates loosely as “Spiritual Journey.” Realize that you love Ink.
After five months of fruitless job-hunting (your impressive resume no longer being worth the paper it’s printed on in the field for which you trained), you beg your parents for a business-start-up loan to open a Hawai’ian BBQ restaurant with your Hawai’ian Guy. Your parents are blessedly willing to believe in you despite yourself, your recent history, and your lack of business background (or, for that matter, kitchen skills; your mother had already given up on you in this regard when she sent you off to college with a cookbook titled “How to Boil an Egg”)…
Creativity, Desperation, and Determination seem to make for a workable business plan. Several months after opening, your new restaurant holds a top spot in the BBQ category of UrbanSpoon, and you begin catching up on your bills.
Call your Sister and your Guy’s best friend on a Monday night and ask them to meet you at the courthouse before work the next morning. Marry your Hawai’ian with those two cherished witnesses, and then head over to open your restaurant for the day.
Enjoy the restaurant’s success, and family life, for a year before throwing everything away (not “losing it”—throwing it away) by picking up the bottle again. Your house goes into foreclosure, car repossessed, business gone, and (WORST!) you lose your share of custody of your kids.
Sober up again, find a trailer to live in, eke a living by freelance writing, and fight your way back to the most important thing: time with your kids. Learn how to blog. Find joy in writing, and in simple things that don’t require money. Practice gratitude. Remember, in this round of Recovery, to continue nurturing your marriage and praying with your husband—things that helped you both to stay Sober before.
After a couple years of bartering and scrounging and scraping by, your husband ages enough to cash in his retirement account (from the career he crashed-and-burned through drinking), and that it’s enough to re-open the restaurant. Immerse yourself for a year and a half in a second round of (successful) restauranteuring… And then remember again, just before your 40th birthday, that you love to write, and “dust off” your dormant blog…

Have I learned anything at 40? Maybe to "hang loose" and let God's plans happen — Have I learned anything at 40? Maybe to “hang loose” and let God’s plans happen

I suppose it’s a common enough (if self-indulgent) urge to take stock of your life when you hit a birthday ending with a zero… And I wonder if it’s also common for people to find themselves shaking their heads at the unexpectedness of their path so far. I’m betting it’s far more common than a “Life” boardgame (or a million other cultural and media messages) would have us believe. (And I’m damned sure that “more money” doesn’t constitute an automatic win.)

Sure, some of the events of the last decade are things I hadn’t yet planned at 30, but they at least fit with my ideas about myself (like the career in online teaching & the move to administration). But there are so many more things that I never, never would have believed (at 30) a part of my future. Divorce. Arrest. Career termination. Academic failure. And that “unexpected” category includes the positive twists as well; I would have laughed my ass off at anybody who foretold I’d own a restaurant!

If I’ve become any wiser in the last ten years, it’s a simple matter of acknowledging the Journey. I accept now that God’s plans are better than mine; that even trials and tough spots can contribute to growth and joy; and that (even when I think I have a plan) I truly have no idea what’s in store for me on the road still to come. Today, I’ll focus on today’s segment of the Journey, and whatever it brings. Huaka’i Kapono.

Recovery

Mythbusters Edition: “Depression is Just in Your Head”

Posted on August 21, 2014November 9, 2016 by Kana Smith

Well, okay—Depression IS just in your head, but not in the way people mean when they say something like that. People who make (misguided, misinformed, misanthropic) statements like the above are saying that you just need to change your mind / suck it up / pull yourself up by your bootstraps [side-note: what, exactly, IS a bootstrap?]… And Bingo, there-you-go, just decide NOT to be Depressed. If it were that simple, do you really think there would be anybody still struggling with Depression? (“You know, I’ve been thinking about what my Outlook on Life should be, and I’ve decided that Depression is a perfect fit for me”... Nope, nobody says that.)

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! If it were that simple, nobody would be Depressed!

Like Addiction, Depression is a matter of Brain Chemistry. To borrow from the book Alcoholics Anonymous (substitute “Depression” for “Alcoholism”—I will personally vouch that this statement applies with equal truth to both): “If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago.” In other words, it’s absurd to believe that anybody would choose to be Depressed (or an Alcoholic, come to that) if the remedy were as simple as Deciding Not To Be. Both illnesses (and they ARE illnesses) are based in brain chemistry—and for one of them, science has presented us with a chemical answer, in the form of prescription antidepressants. (Of course, there are no “pills” yet to reverse Alcoholism, so thank God for A.A.!)

If I seem to have a bee in my bonnet [side-note: did ladies really used to have problems with insects invading their head-gear? why do we use so many phrases based on clothing that’s no longer in use?] on this topic, it’s because it makes me angry to see anti-depressants demonized (or even discouraged, or disapproved of), either in the media at large or in personal or social interactions around us.

Bottom line: anti-depressants are preserving quality-of-life for millions of people, and saving ACTUAL lives for some of those. (Depression isn’t the cause of all suicides, true—but I’m here to say that when you feel utterly incapable of dealing with shit, the idea of having all-the-shit-go-away can be appallingly attractive.)

The first time I faced Depression, I really didn’t know that’s what it was. I was not-quite-thirty, and happily situated (I honestly believed) as the stay-home mom of an entertaining three-year-old Hobbit and a new baby (there’s a hint: I knew about Post-Partum Depression, but somehow didn’t imagine it would apply to me)… At that point in my life, a deeply-ingrained part of my self-image was the idea that I was a person who pressed on (cheerfully! and stubbornly!) even through adversity. I grew up very comfortably middle-class American, with most of my “problems” of the trivial First-World variety, but I HAD dealt (cheerfully! stubbornly!) with a fair bit of real adversity, primarily medical in nature.

Since my diagnosis at 15, I’d been engaged in an epic and ongoing battle for control-of-my-life against my nemesis, Crohn’s Disease. Despite being told that I shouldn’t/couldn’t undertake or finish any number of things (school semesters, student-teaching, having children…) I managed to get those things done. Cheerfully! Stubbornly! More recently, I’d dealt with the three-months-early arrival of my daughter, 12 weeks of shuttling between my toddler at home and my (constantly endangered) infant in the NICU, and then the crushing diagnosis that my daughter was profoundly and irreversibly Deaf. (For a Hearing mom who knew only a smattering of words in what I presumed would be my child’s First Language—American Sign Language—that was a challenge of staggering proportions.)

Then some Miracles happened. Six months out from that diagnosis (confirmed by multiple specialists), my daughter was inexplicably Hearing—and had all those specialists scratching their heads at the “impossibility.” My own Crohn’s Disease at that point had inexplicably been in remission for almost three years (STILL is, in fact—leaving my gastroenterologist scratching his head at the “impossibility”).

Yet it was at that point, with my Life’s Challenges blessedly removed from my shoulders, and my family settling into a happy routine (that didn’t include a dozen doctor-appointments in a week), that Depression hit. And it took me way too long to figure out what was going on and get help for it—because (dammit) I was a person who DEALT WITH SHIT. Cheerfully! Stubbornly!

What stands out in my mind about that time isn’t SADness so much as FROZENness—the utter inability to face or cope with really, really simple stuff. Perfect example: I can remember obsessing and stressing ALL DAY about the fact that I really needed to empty the dishwasher. Yet despite my unwarranted levels of anxiety over this existence-of-clean-dishes, I absolutely could not bring myself to DO the sensible thing one would usually do when confronted with an affronting load of clean dishes: namely, to put them away. I just somehow couldn’t deal with that. All day.

Prozac turned out to be my next miracle. (Though, unlike our family’s other Medical Miracles, this one is entirely explicable through basic brain-chemistry.) Within a few weeks of seeing my doctor, that darn dishwasher no longer had the power to intimidate me.

Trying to understand why I’d gone into meltdown AFTER things got better (because I tend to over-think stuff!!) I came up with an analogy from my college days at University of Hawai’i. I’d been Scuba-diving once, about 80 feet down, when my air tank blew. I (calmly) banged on my tank to get my dive-buddy’s attention, (calmly) instigated “buddy-breathing” procedure from his air-supply, (calmly) made the ascent at the prescribed rate to avoid the Bends, (calmly) swam the half-mile or so to shore… And then went completely to pieces. I still remember my dive-buddy standing over me in bewilderment, asking “Why are you crying NOW?” And the best I could answer was that I couldn’t go to pieces “out there” (where keeping your head can literally be a matter of life-and-death) but this was something I HAD to go to pieces over… Once it was “safe” to do so. Looking back, I think there’s SOME truth to this analogy, but I also know better (now) than to discount the biology behind an episode of Depression. The fact that I’d been super-stressed half a year earlier does NOT fully account for the insane amount of power that dishwasher was holding over my mental and emotional life.

cartoon courtesy of http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nakedpastor

In the intervening years, I’ve dealt with a round of Depression far worse than the first one—because the second was exacerbated by alcohol. (Yes, the Biology-major-in-me does know that alcohol is a depressant… But the Alcoholic-in-me was nevertheless senselessly trying to “feel better” by using it, to excess and insanity…) Once again, Prozac relieved me of one of those illnesses (while A.A. has enabled me to keep the other at bay). I thank God that I live in a time when both of these solutions are available to me, and I HATE (a word I use sparingly) seeing either of these solutions—or worse, the people who need them—disparaged or denigrated. I’d like to think that there’s somewhat less of a stigma on anti-depressants (and people who take them) than there used to be. Just ten years ago I remember some of my acquaintances expressing shock that I was open about seeking the help of “psych meds.” (Not shocked that I was taking them, I think, so much as shocked that I would admit to it.) I’d like to think there’s less of that mentality out there now.

During my freelance-writing years, I was hired to write on a lot of crazy topics, but there were a couple where I just couldn’t bring myself to write what was requested. Knowing full well that the client might refuse to pay (and worse, find another writer who WOULD write that stuff) I nevertheless forged ahead with a version I could live with. One of those was a client who wanted me to write about why people should use “natural” remedies instead of “drugs” to deal with Depression. After wrestling with myself, what I actually wrote (and, incidentally, what the client did accept) was a set of articles on natural remedies that might help with Depression IF a person were unable or unwilling to turn to pharmaceuticals, or even in addition to such prescriptions. I wasn’t willing to be responsible for even one person reading that they “shouldn’t” consider prescription anti-depressants. There’s too much of that out there already.

image courtesy of http://pando.com/2014/08/11/a-confederacy-of-quacks-the-war-against-antidepressants/

If you’re wondering why I’m suddenly busting-out-of-nowhere with this topic (breaking an 18-month writing-drought, no less), it’s because I recently realized that my (formerly friendly and utterly inoffensive) mailbox has taken to intimidating me. Last night I MADE myself go out to collect a week’s worth of mail, which had accumulated there while (day after day) I’d been thinking I needed to get the mail, but somehow couldn’t face doing it. This is especially “crazy” given that we don’t even get BILLS at our home address (those all go to the business address), so it’s not even a matter of worrying about what was IN the mail… There’s not going to be anything threatening, or even bothersome (unless you count junk-coupons) in that box, but the task of emptying it seemed to be beyond me. Apparently the mailbox is my new dishwasher.

Happily, at not-quite-forty (birthday in a couple weeks) I understand myself somewhat better than I did at not-quite-thirty… I have an appointment Monday to renew my Prozac!