Hi there,
Welcome to my blog!
Still have my learner’s license, so stay tuned while I learn how to drive this thing.
Consider buying some poetry for a special stocking stuffer this Christmas… it’s not chocolate, but then again. it’s not a lump of coal either…
aren’t they lovely?
Bizarre as it may sound, I feel like I’ve been soaked in a sudden rain shower in a field with with wooly, windswept Highland cattle grazing around me. And I just came from taking minutes at a board meeting. I don’t understand how this can be, but I hope it lasts. Maybe the Abilify is acting benevolent and tonic-like, or maybe I am coming out from under some oppressive astrological influence, or maybe it’s something I ate. Or didn’t eat. Or read… despite what Russell Smith said today in the Glob of Mayo.
I’m too close to the end of my wick to write more but happy to be alive and well and hopeful that I’ll get back to this blog more often… check out Russell and see what you think of his view of fiction… and maybe we’ll be able to have an intelligent conversation about it. Or you will. With someone else.Hopefully I’ll be busy reading in the grass with Highland cattle hair all over me, if I’m lucky.
holy magnolia!
It’s been a long while since I wrote here and I blame it on… exhaustion. I am only working 20 hours a week but it seems to suck every last drop of energy from me. Still, it’s great to be learning new things, great to have a pay cheque and great to be doing something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile… namely, working on my social media skills.
Today I was at a workshop sponsored by the Halifax Community Health Board, called “Get Social”, all about social media, why it’s a good thing for not-for- profits to use it and how to do just that. It was a great little exciting and inspiring event! Really exciting to learn about how to use a hashtag and to hear about how blogging can bring you friends and fame if not fortune… it sounds like social media is all about building community, that’s it’s generally slowish and organic and that if you build a Facebook page, blog, or Twitter presence with authenticity, interesting content and a sincere desire to connect, the fans, friends and followers will come! That’s a heartening message for someone like me who is lost at sea among the technology and who just wants to create some buzz for Independent Living Nova Scotia and start a conversation with people about disability and independent living through the ILNS blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.
Please bear with me while I try to recoup my energy and get back into the swing of my own personal blog…in the meantime, I hope you’ll check out what I’m doing at ILNS and let me know what you think!
Today there was an article about Invisible Publishing in the Chronicle Herald… my darling publisher without whom I would not have a book out. I can’t say enough good about them… and I hope you will give some of their titles a try. I still have images of Ian Orti’s “L (and things come apart)” floating in my brain, and taste Stephanie Domet’s “Homing” (which is going to be made into a film) as I’m falling asleep… memorable books from a great publisher.
But the big news is … it’s Spring! And every little blade of grass, still reaching through the topsoil to grasp the sunlight, knows it. Every littl crocus, fat as goldfish, feels it in its roots. And those of us who go crazy for Spring, are bathing in its bliss.
Some people I know who are bipolar find the Spring a difficult time. It might be the sap rising in us or the longer days/shorter nights or the weird temperature fluctuations. To all those bipolar friends out there… hang on tight! It’ll be over soon and Summer will be upon us in all its glory.
But for me, Summer seems to be the difficult time. My last two mental health blips of a serious nature have occurred in the summer. Maybe it was merely the meds or lack thereof, maybe it was the turning 30, then 40, and maybe it was stress. Which makes me anxious, because tomorrow I start a job placement, and I will be working harder and under more pressure than I have been for several years. Wish me luck! and I’ll wish you a calm and bloom-filled Spring.
It’s one of those truly beautiful days that we barely deserve… sun shining, warm enough to open a window, snow melt in the street. I imagine college kids walking down Spring Garden Road in t shirts and as for me, I’ve started on a little Spring cleaning.
If I am honest, I clean rarely enough that Spring cleaning could really be 2012 cleaning. And it’s not like the people in my life don’t know that. When they come over they pretty much know they’re going to have to weave around boxes and suitcases and balance their tea cup on a pile of stuff. It looks like I’m constantly in the middle of moving. Which I am not- I hope either to die here or to one day move one very last time to the home of my dreams, where the floor vacuums itself and the dishes are washed and put away by robotic arms that fold neatly into kitchen drawers when not in use.
They say that the state of one’s home reflects the state of one’s mind. I like to think my thoughts are a creative ferment bubbling away as evidenced by my compost bucket and the dirty dishes that are crossing that mysterious border between the inanimate and the living. However it is more true to say that I am a lazy housekeeper and it reflects a certain intellectual and emotional laziness. I don’t like to admit it but I believe it to be true.
Some of that could be the meds, some of it the illness… but a lot of it I think is an aversion to pain, sharpness, rigour. When I was a kid, I was a hyper-anxious, hyper-perfectionistic student. I put myself through hell, and then things fell apart in high school and I began to avoid suffering and anything that smacked of depth. As a result I kind of float along the surface of life … but I don’t beat myself up about it, because I’ve been there and done that and already made myself sick
So today I did a little Spring cleaning, not much, but enough to feel like I did it, and the sun and friends blessed my home over cranberry tea and raspberry squares. A good afternoon. Back to chaos and mess soon enough, but I have a peaceful feeling about it, like i could easily have another golden afternoon, anytime I choose. It’s good to know I have a choice.
It’s been a while since I wrote here, and I blame it on the bus strike. I and a number of people I know have decided it’s not worth getting our hopes up… the bus strike will go on as long as both sides of the issue dig in their heels. In the meantime,we keep doing what we can, and miss out on the thingts we can’t, and try to enjoy ourselves closer to home. I haven’t felt like writing about the damn bus stirke, so instead I offer a list of ten things a person can do on their own without going far.
1) Order a pizza and eat it in an unusual place- like in the bathtub or in your neighbour’s car. Remember to clean up!
2) Make chocolate pudding from scratch and finger paint on the windows with it.
3) Recite poetry to the dog. Rate each poem for the number of tail wags or growls it elicits.
4) Memorize the numbers of your credit, debit and library card. This could come in handy, if you lose them.
5) Take an inventory of your canned goods.
6) Sharpen a lot of pencils.
7) Bake something for your neighbour’s cat.
8) Black out the word “and” in every book you own.
9) Put your Christmas decorations up.
10) Take your Christmas decorations down.
Clearly you can add to this list… you no doubt have your own special ways to amuse yourself at home, and who am I to stop you? if you ever need to talk , there’s always the Metro Transit information line. And if you’re feeling nostalgic, dial up the go time number for your favourite bus stop!
When something upsets one’s equilibrium, it’s a little like when something upsets one’s digestion. It’s uncomfortable, distressing, and regrettable. And when things right themselves, it’s hard to remember what all the fuss was about.
I don’t think it’s the Abilify… it might just be too much screen time. The brain tiredness, and headacheiness, and general lethargy could all be linked to my computer. I know I am an addict because even when I know I’m unhappy and uncomfortable, I can’t pull myself away.
That said…
Yesterday I spent much of the afternoon in bed reading Annabelle by Kathleen WInter. It’s one of those novels that is easy, so easy to read and to enjoy. There might be more intellectually challenging novels, but to me there is something incredibly precious about a book that is well written, a great story with great characters, and that you want to take to bed not to put you to sleep but to keep you reading into the wee hours, until your eyes dry out and your lids refuse to open. I so rarely spend time soaking in a novel these days or indeed, since I crossed the wild field of adolescence that it reminds me of childhood, that far away time when books were for devouring by the stack, like pancakes.
If a person wanted to cultivate an addiction, they could do worse than reading novels. They could be enslaved to email. If they’re lucky though, they can have a little of both… all the words they want, on screen and off. He who does not believe in heaven has never taken a novel to bed, or answered their email from his bubble bath.
I started a new medication lately, called Abilify.. It comes in a weird little pill, so small that it gets lost in my mouth, and I don’t even know when I’ve swallowed it. I think it makes me a bit nauseous, and every day, sometime in between 4 and 6 pm, I feel … wrong. My head aches, mildly, and life makes me unhappy. It doesn’t last long, and is minor enough that I find it interesting rather than upsetting.
The hope is that Abilify will help me lose weight as well as support my mental health. I have doubts about the weight loss, but am willing to give it old the college try. Olanzapine has worked well on my brain but has not been so good for my physical health, and Abilify may be able to succeed where Olanzapine has failed.
But it’s my low intensity exercise class that I think is of most benefit to me physically and it comes a close second to my drugs where my mental health is concerned. I am able to get what for me is a workout, among people who are similarly disabled by pain, breathing problems, and/or weight-related issues We’re all trying to do better, go farther and longer, and although we’ll never make the Olympics, our small gains (or losses, as the case may be) are reason to celebrate.
If Abilify does what its name seems to imply, making me more able (to get around the gym, lose weight and keep out of hospital) then it’s worth a little headache and unhappiness. And if it lets me add a few more steps to my pedometer total, I’ll dedicate a poem to it.”Abilify me!”
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Hunkering down for the bus strike, So many of us are without resources to get to work, to doctor appointments, to the grocery store. I have already seen the negative impact of the bus strike on the mental health of a friend, and expect to feel it in my pocketbook soon when I and others I work with can’t get to my usual gigs (writing group and Random Acts of Kindness group) at the Healthy Minds Cooperative, It can’t be good for business that people can’t get to the stores. On the bright side however, maybe there will be fewer kids hanging out at the mall. Maybe they’ll take to the streets and play hockey, walk to school, make friends with their neighbours.
But as usual when an essential service is cut off or denied, it’s the most vulnerable who hurt most– seniors, the working poor, and people with disabilities on fixed incomes, who have no other options. It’s only fair to mention them.because while the bus strike is an inconvenience to many, to some it is a deprivation that can lead to social isolation, ill health and further impoverishment, May the strike end soon, and thanks to all the generous souls who are pitching in to help ( Thanks Dad!) .
I’ve been writing some… not today but recently. I haven’t had much work but have been devoting some time every morning to writing and it makes me feel peaceful and happy. But i need to get some paying gigs so please keep me in mind. Maybe you’re having a birthday party and want me to come lead a poetry workshop for your guests! or maybe you have a wedding coming up and instead of getting pedicures and up dos, you want to work on your wedding speeches. Well I hope you’ll think of me! I don’t jump out of cakes, juggle or make balloon animals, but I can do something! I’m a mercenary poet.
It’s late. bedtime and dreamtime. I had a strange dream the other night that my friend Chava called me and then fell silent on the phone while i asked questions trying to figure out what was wrong. I woke up in the middle of the dream so never did find out why she wouldn’t say anything. The new med I’m on might make for more vivid dreams… I’m looking forward to more of those!
time for cornflakes. time for bed
