{Echo} 8 - "Juicy"

I've often wondered, "If winter is so white, then why do I feel so blue?"

Granted, living with BiPolar Disorder means living with a susceptibility to long periods of depression, especially during the winter months. However, a large portion of the population as a whole suffers with SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is brought on during long periods of diminished sunlight. Of course one can take medication to ward off the symptoms of depression, but then there is a pill for everything these days. Yes, you sense a bit of sarcasm there. I'm not saying medication is not warranted. I take medication. But I am also a firm believer in taking a mind set that encourages its own well being and recovery. With that in mind, I've compiled a short "David Letterman-esque" list of ways to get through a Blue-Day white day:

Listen to a "Sun-Shiny" tune:

Grow and save summer in a jar:

 

 or a tall frosty glass.

Savor the reminder of melodious crickets and cicadas

(and blades of grass under bare feet).

Left © Alyice Edrich / Right © Brenda Lynn

Pull out your paints, your paper, pencils, markers, etc. Heck, pull it all out. Scatter it about you. Immerse yourself in all their succulent, juicy colors and spread sunshine on your palette.
Build an eternal summer on your canvas.

Take long walks on sunny days, even when you feel buried alive:

 
Always, always search out the beauty in the bleak:

  

And often there's humor in the bleak as well:

Lastly, try to keep in mind:

"In the depths of winter I finally learned that there was in me

an invincible summer." ~Albert Camus

In other words, it's up to you. Yes, some folks undeniably need the additional help of medications to help stabilize their moods. I am one of them. Regardless, how we set our minds and how we spend our time has a dramatic impact on the severity and duration of our Blue-Day moods.

This little list is not meant as a "fix-all", nor is it exhaustive. It is simply what helps me get through our long mid-western winters. Simple healthy habits like regular sleep and diet are also very important. My point here is simply to encourage you to see the glass half-full, no matter your circumstance. Find the beauty in the bleak. Play a sun-shiny tune. Paint that eternal summer across the canvas of your soul.

Please visit my partner Alyice Edrich's Juicy post here. For more on the Echo Project, please click through with the icon on the top right sidebar.

Peace to you and yours,

"Echo is the voice of the reflection in the mirror." ~Hawthorne

This year has been one of new discoveries and new ventures; braving avenues I once feared to explore. The fear is still there to some degree, and I assume it always will be for me. But I've become tired of being that shy little girl watching from the window as the neighborhood kids giggle in play. It's an awful lonely view. As I gather years like postcards I find myself hurrying to "catch-up" with a world I've let play out in front of me. I no longer care to be the audience of my own life. I chose instead to play the leading role. So now, when opportunities light right on the tip of my nose, I sieze them and relish in the discovery of this new world, and in turn, myself.


I became familiar with Chrysti Hydeck last year when I became interested in mixed media arts and saw her feature on ART-ography in an issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. Wow, the things this girl could do with pictues. I have an interest in beautiful photography as well, though I can tell you nothing of f-stops and exposure. Reading on, I learned Chrysti aslo lives with BiPolar Disorder. Well, heck, I just had to know a little more about this person who shared similar interests (and maladies) as I. I began seeing her on various social networks and in turn, began learning not only about her, but various artists, photographers, art techniques, and all kinds of wonderfully inspiring things. (And she can can place a quote- another trait I enjoy- like no body's business.)


Recently, Chrysti and her friend Susan Tuttle began one of the most insightful projects I've come across in a long while. They call it Echo. You can read more about it here, but the gist of the project is to interpret a bi-weekly prompt through photography. As I said, I'm not the slightest bit knowledgeable in the art of photography, but I do "see" things (not in the spooky sense, mind you) that move me in one way or another and I enjoy the act of capturing them to the best of my ability. So, when I received an invite through Flickr to join this group, I was very tempted and even more excited. Just as quickly, however, that same little girl began whispering in my ear, "Oh no. You can't. You're NO photographer!" My new self... the one who is poking for footing and grasping for handholds is becoming quite stubborn and selfish. I clicked "accept" and started walking the path, taking my scared and insecure self along for the journey.


The first prompt was "Emerge". Immediately I recalled a picture I'd taken this past spring of my daylillies struggling to survive an early growth and late season frost.

Now I am not at all a winter person. In fact, it is a time of deep heaviness for me. So when buds and blooms poke thru the dead of the previous year's growth, my heart quickens and my pluse follows. I emerge from my winter cocoon right along side Spring's green. I snapped this picture and kept it on my desktop as a reminder that this was just a quirky season. The buds, and I, would survive.


The second prompt was "Decorate". I had many ideas of this, from the typical fall and halloween do-dads propped on lawns and porches, to a few folks I know covered in tatoos and studded with piercings. But, this just didn't feel right, so I pondered a while. Yesterday as I was out and about, I glanced at a local graveyard that has been catching my eye. I've been wanting to photograph some of the old headstones, but for what I wasn't quite sure. As I sat there looking, it came into my mind how we "decorate" our hillsides in memory of those who walked before us, those we've loved and lost. We also tend to decorate these sacred sites with colorful blooms and yes, even holiday decorations, but as I looked I watched the wind carry these things away one gust at a time. It occured to me then that decorations are not always bold and fanciful and themed, but often times so subtle and unobtrusive we hardly notice them. Not until they are gone.

I wandered the rows of stones and found that most are now unreadable, and I wondered if those who decorated this hillside still remember the place of their loved ones. In the end, does it really matter?


I've always told my family and friends that I want no burial, no grave, no headstone. My time is what it is: here then gone. Rather than decorate hillsides or meadows, I prefer instead to decorate my own life, and if I'm lucky, the lives of others, with every experience I'm lucky enough (and brave enough) to explore. For me, those things don't weather or blow away, but become instead the little subtleties that make life so wonderfully lived.


Peace to you and yours,