From the WSW vault: the sea is my medicine

September 2015, I write:

“People who know me would say I am a positive person. Usually a positive person. Lately, my moods have been dark. In the past few months, disastrous things have happened which have left me feeling worthless, victimised and suicidal. I will start to document the experience here over time. But I understand why people haven’t wanted to be with me. Hell, I haven’t wanted to be with me either
I’ve been walking the line around the edge of depression. My husband suffers from depression and low self-esteem. Has done so for years. So there’s no room in our household for me to be sick also. I cannot go down there as it is I who holds our family together. I’m not trying to big myself up. It has been the truth, until now.
Now, I’m just falling apart, been doing so gradually over the last few months. At the same time, I’ve been attempting to build my life, myself back up. I see now my mistake has been to hold on too tight to how things were in the past, how I was in the past, resisting change at the same time as wanting these difficult times to pass.

Robert Frost wrote:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I first came across this poem in the film, The Outsiders. Ponyboy recited it to his friend Johnny. Then on his death bed, Johnny told Ponyboy to ‘stay gold.’ I loved that film. I think Johnny was trying to tell Ponyboy to stay good, stay innocent and pure, to not let the harshness of this world change him. That’s a difficult request to fulfill. There is more ugliness in this world than ever I feel, but I have to acknowledge that there is also beauty.

I have to remember that how I behave, act or speak originates from me. No one else can or should control how I act and behave. I do want to be a positive person but I know that person has gone. Changes occurred. They had to. I want to be whole. So more changes will have to come. I’ll be a positive and good person but a wholly different positive person than before.
Why the image of the sea to accompany this post? Because I got back into the sea today after weeks of avoiding it. The sea is my medicine. I’ve been refusing to take my medicine. Maybe because I didn’t have the energy, or maybe because I didn’t want to heal. Today, I dived into the cold sea releasing a little of my pain. I smiled while I luxuriated in her cold watery embrace reminded why I love being in the water, that feeling of freedom and what I’ve been been missing. The sea saved me.”

Sea film

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken

I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for

may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

Streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Podcast: Straight Talk For A Curvy World

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At the end of July, I was honoured to be featured in an episode of Straight Talk For The Curvy World hosted by the lovely and perceptive Ann Peck. A podcast covering the challenges women over the age of 40 face each day, has been a life -line for me since I found this gem in November 2015. So it was such a dream come true when Ann approached me asking if I would complete an interview with her about my up and coming book, rubedo.
I jumped at the opportunity and I am so glad that I didn’t allow my fears to stand in the way. This would be the first time I’d spoken at length about the ordeal I went through starting in May 2015 leading up to now. An ordeal that played out in a very public way on social media. Detailed within my creative non-fiction book, Ann has a way of questioning that gets to the heart of the issues, and I honestly came away from this experience closer to my authentic self. And I thank Ann and this podcast for their continuing insight and support.
Check out the episode in question. Episode 46: Raw Feelings Put On The Page Can Heal You.