Making It Through Winter

In June 2012 I went into meltdown and collapsed inward on myself. For a week I was so depressed that I couldn't walk and talk at the same time - I'd have to stop still just to answer 'yes' or 'no' when Mac asked me a question. Months of visits to doctors and a clinical psychologist, and working through John Kerwin's website helped me to gradually re-emerge from the bleak, black hole.  I didn't take drugs other than herbal St Johns Wort, though I did set myself a time limit for feeling better, and would have taken them if there had been no improvement. Once out of the hole, I knew I had to change things if I was to stay out of the chasm. It's been over two years and I still have to consciously work on my mental state on a daily basis - and I think I will have to do this for the rest of my life.

Last year I avoided the 'inevitable' worsening of my depression in winter by running away to Alaska for the month of June: the anticipation kept me bright before hand, while the memories and that month of 23 hour a day sunlight kept me going through the dark days of July and August.

I approached this winter with a mixture of terror, hopefulness, and determination. I had learned a lot of new skills - maybe I could get through this winter without falling over the edge. So, here are some of the things I have learned to do that help minimise depression and maximise happiness and contentment:

• exercise - I need to do a lot more, but, still, I am doing more than I used to and I definitely feel better for it;
• eat healthier - and not give in to binging on sugar and chocolate when I start seeing the blackness creeping towards me, out of the corner of my eye. By really being aware of what food I eat and how my body reacts, I have noticed an improvement in mood;
• plan something nice every week - 'smaller' things like lunch with a son, a visit with a friend, and 'bigger' things like a week at the Mount with several friends, and our suit / tie / posh frock party.  The planning is the key - the benefit of the anticipation does me even more good that the activity itself;

• creating lists of work goals for each day so I can feel a sense of accomplishment when I tick things off the list - as a stay-at-home yeoman farmer / 'housewife' it's easy not to notice the housework, gardening, beekeeping, poultry keeping work I do, especially when I'm tending toward a down period;

• indulging my creativity by taking time to do craft work and write (though that's one area in which I've fallen down this winter.)

• listening to music, both live and recorded;
• reading useful books, magazines and websites - and severely limiting fiction. I have come to acknowledge that it is very easy for me to escape into fiction, becoming much more introspective and isolated from reality, which tends to drive me lower;
• being aware of negative thoughts about myself, others, and well, just about anything, and questioning myself about the feeling - I can often trace the thoughts way back to something which is really irrelevant to my life today;

•  actively looking out at the world every day, several times a day, seeking beauty: the greens, blues, browns, yellows, the reds of the world, a buttercup smiling up through the grass; the shapes of the bare, winter trees; the crazy clouds that scuttle across the sky; the amazing windmills on the hills; the sound of the stream cavorting through our bush; the soft, sweet smelling fur of our grey tabby cat. There is so much beauty as long as I keep my vision wide and aware - but I have to concentrate, because my tendency is for the darkness to narrow my vision, for the darkness to close in around me so that I can't see the beauty.

Simple, easy things for many people who don't even have to think about them, but for me so hard to remember, so unfamiliar, so tiring to keep doing on a daily basis. This is not a familiar pattern - I was raised in a culture of criticism 'for your own good': nothing was ever good enough; everything was examined for how I could do better; there was always someone else who had done better that could be held up as an example, and I learned to criticise myself and others, to evaluate everyone and everything for their lack of perfection.

It's working. This winter I have been happier, more contented than any winter I can remember. In the past it seemed that I was a 'grey okay' most of the time, interspersed by substantial periods of blackness, and rare times of what Abraham Maslow called 'peak experiences'.

Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences. ..................Abraham Maslow

I knew that Maslow believed it was possible to increase the frequency of peak experiences but back when I was a university student, I learned only one way to induce one (to go to the ocean on my own and sit with the sea.) It never occured to me to even try raising my general level of happiness. I assumed that would take outside intervention, or even a miracle.

What I have finally learned is that miracles are not big things, but rather are found in the smallest parts of our lives. The beauty and engineering of the spider's web outside my back door. A smile. A tui singing in the pohutukawa tree.

The cultivation of appreciation of the smallest things, and of (though I hesitate to use such a trendy term) mindfulness, has brought so much joy into my life. I am learning to look for the good, the beautiful, the wonder in everything and to largely dismiss that negative inner voice. And I practice the art of peak experiences almost daily now. My life is becoming a life mainly of contentment, interspersed with joy and occasional sadness and tiredness. Although I sense the black dog stalking me, trying to use the tiredness and sadness to bring me down, I am constantly alert and I now have the skills to chase him off.

I have made it through winter and have come through happy, joyous even. If you see me looking down, please remind me to look for the small miracle - a hug or a smile will generally suffice.

P.S. I can't believe I forgot to mention the supplements I take, especially Vit D, and my 'happy lamp', both of which also contributed to my improved sense of well being.

Bare Bones and Hope

For most of my life, winter has been something to survive. Our winters are not harsh: I'm not talking about physical survival in the sense of Alaskan gold miners in the 1800's. I'm talking about the depression that results from sunlight deprivation.

Last winter I survived by running away to Alaska, where it never gets properly dark in June. This year I'm surviving by making sure I do something I enjoy every week, and that I focus on those things.

But there is something about winter that I have always loved - the bones, the bare bones that get to show their beauty unimpeded.

With fewer trees and less grass, the bare bones of the land are easier to see. I love the way the land folds and creases,

 and how the shadows emphasise the shapes of the earth.

 I love the green reminder of life that our native trees, and our pine forests offer, but I also love the opportunity that winter gives us to see the 'stripped down to their essentials' shapes of the deciduous trees in their amazing variety.

Not only is there variety in shape, the 'bones are of different colours too - something we don't notice when their summer greens and autumn oranges and reds clothe the trees.

 I don't need more land - but I'd like to buy the tree!

 

 I remind myself that even stripped down to their skeletons, these trees have not abandoned life: their sap is still within, waiting for spring; and hanging on the twigs of some, berries, seeds waiting to make new plants.

 

This old pine is nearing the end of its life - a few years ago one half of its twin trunk fell, rotten in its core.

 But even in death, new life finds a precarious hold.

This small pine reminds me that no matter how dark the present, there is always hope and possibility.

Mad Goat

When the sou'wester slices the cold rain horizontally, I like to sit inside by a fire, though today it's too wet and windy to go outside for wood, so the gas heater warms the house.

It's so miserable that even the ducks huddle inside their shelter.

  And the goats abandon their almost constant grazing for the warmth of their A-frame homes.

 Except one. She is bored. So she rearranges her house. She sits it on top of her water bucket. How?

 

 What to do next? Climb under the fence, tangle the chain and stand on the edge of the muddy drain, bleating. As you do.

And I have to put on my big yellow raincoat and go sort it all out. Days like this, I think it could be nice to live in a cosy little town-house.

The Naki and Back #2

On Saturday night we met up with an old friend we hadn't seen since before we had kids, so more than 30 years. Bryan was one of my flatmates when I first went flatting, and was one of the select 17 guests (including a number of children) at our wedding nearly 40 years ago. (Party next February folks!) Mac has been turning old 8mm home movies into digital format and Bryan was delighted to get copies of him and other friends riding motorbikes around (no longer) empty industrial lots in Hamilton.

  Next morning we headed into the central city for a hot chocolate down by the Len Lye Wind Wand before walking up the street.....

 .........past beautifully resurrected old buildings.

 When I was at school there in the late 60s, everything was run-down and grubby,

 but now it's lovely.

  Next stop was the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, where Bryan works, and we spent an hour and a half there having a personal guided tour, including out back, down in the 'dungeons', were all the behind the scenes work is done. I would have loved to have stayed all day, but we did have to get home.

 Unlike the gorgeously revived New Plymouth clock tower, Stratford had, for some obscure reason, revived its clock-tower in the 1990s in mock-Tudor style. I was not impressed!

 We decided to take a long way home - from New Plymouth to Stratford, and then up the 'Forgotten Highway' to Taumarunui. I'd always assumed (and heard) that it was a hard drive, and I guess it is long and twisty and has lots of ridges, but it's pretty easy driving really - and lovely on a sunny day.

 Not far out of Stratford, we found the first spot where we could see both Taranaki and the central North Island mountains

 However, it is definitely 'back country' and I don't think I'd cope with the isolation of living there.

 Around a corner and suddenly a tunnel. Kind of scary - just earth walls and roof.

 Around another corner and a gaspingly beautiful remnant of autumn.

 

In Taumarunui it seemed, at first glance, that winter had ousted autumn, with brown dead leaves on the trees,

 but then in behind I caught a glimpse of a maple glowing in the sun,

 and a bit further along, a final splash of green and gold.

This morning I look out at Mt Karioi again, and although she is not as handsome as my first love, my Taranaki, I find the sight of her a joy, and am glad to be home.