Chrysanthemums and Sedum

The blog called, "The Klonipin Chronicles" has it right, when she says, "We don't do political here. But we do human. Peace to the Martin family."

That's all I am going to say on that subject. I know, sometimes I spout, but my agenda here is education, advocacy, and acceptance for mental diagnoses. Not political.

The unicorn meat eating cats are all awake, and busily jump in and out of the window. The carpet at the door is still wet from the recent deluges. I need to borrow a fan. I did mow the grass yesterday. I had tried to put it off, thinking it would rain, but mowed anyway. Just as I finished, the rain poured...someone is watching out for me. Max is awake, but is only vaguely interested in it. There are 3 senior dogs at the Roanoke pound that need a foster/adopt. One couple yesterday, dropped off a beautiful, elderly Irish Setter because he was, "getting old." Shame on them!

Today, I am neither happy, nor sad, but mixed. I have bipolar NOS (Not Otherwise Specified), and I am the Queen of 'mixed states'.

Mixed states are when a person, usually with bipolar I, have symptoms of mania and depression at the same time. I come off of mania, with depression. Usually, I have rapid cycling as well. Neither the mania or the depression lasts, but happens quickly. The interesting thing is: that the anti-psychotic is not the mood stabilizer, the Prozac is.

My new and exciting sleep schedule is to blame for starting the mania. I still don't think I am over the depression that set in this past winter. More than anyone else, I know what it is to be distracted to avoid thinking and accepting life. Sometimes, the answer is to focus. That's what I would like to bring you on this rainy Sunday...

The daylilies bloom in abundance this year, because of the rain. Their gold and yellow trumpets wave by the hundreds on the banks of streams and creeks. While the rocks have turned green and gray and blue from the running water and the sunlight. Down the street from my apartment, someone with an eye for color has planted Starlight lilies...deep pink and rose, and white. I love Starlight lilies, and would buy them by the fistful for my Mother. They are highly fragrant, though, and you must be judicious in their placing. They should sell them singly, they are so potent.

My therapist has complained that when an event happens, no matter how small, that my mind connects it to something, an event, in the past...I thought that was the human condition, but now have concluded that it is the writer's condition. Practicing Mindfulness is the answer. It is to break time down to just this moment, and pay attention to what happens right now.

For instance, to feel nothing but the smoothness of the keys under my fingers, the snorting of the dog as he smells out of the window, the coolness of my new sheets...the scent of the candle on my nightstand. It is to block memories, and focus on the present moment. I practice it all the time, outside, and there it is easy. No matter how cozy my apartment, it is filled with remnants and reminders of the past. There is no getting around that.

To stand on a tree's roots is the surest way into the present moment for me. I can feel the electric liveliness of the tree; can hear it's tree thoughts. I feel what it is to have leaves, and how they rest, in winter, the sap moving slowly. Bark delights in the cold of the frosts...

So that now, I know that I am depressed, still, by the realization that it is the un-sleeping season, and yet I want to do nothing but sleep. The colors are vibrant outside, and I have mixed a riotous living of hues together, for the fun of it, and yet, I look for the palest of geraniums to bloom, the pink. Everything grows in abundance, in this rainy season, but I still feel frozen by winter.

I look to Autumn to warm me. The warm, but darker nights, the clearer stars. I look for the breezes that blow the moisture in the air away. What a show of fall's colors we will have this year, with all the rain! I remember a night, that I stood on Good Neighbor's porch, and gave away candy for hours...I remember the white chili, chicken, and the brown chili, beef, that she served us afterword, to take the cold off. I remember with relief, the lessening of the heat, which we have not had this year, yet. I remember the scent of the fall, as it comes. The indefinable smell of change in the air, that sends wild creatures to warmer climates, and the deepest of dens, eating as they go. I remember watching the pilgrimage of the deer and the turkey, as they moved along their paths by the Old House.

Paths that have been followed forever? Or changing, as our climate changes? Berries are in season now, and the woods have filled with their tones of blue. Blueberries, blackberries, and the elusive wineberries. The mud in the field is impassable, but I have my 'muck boots.' They are made of neoprene, and soft rubber, to keep the wet out. The forest floor is treacherous as well. And the moss is everywhere. But goldenrod grow up to the edge of the woods, and the blackberries shine red and black. The 'bridal bower' of vines on the path blooms white overhead.

The maple sends out many shoots this year, into the graveled part of my walkway. Today is a day to weed, to cut back on the green that encroaches on the path to my door, and to pull the grasses that grow along the foot of the impatiens and the hydrangea. The begonias, with their orange-red flowers, and red tinted leaves, grow at break-neck speed. The sides of their pots are green from moss.

I set the begonias in the favorite pots of my Mother. They are a smoothish stucco, sand colored. They have whorls in the clay that run around the pot. Every year, I vow to paint them, and every year, I fail. My Mother bought quite a few of those pots, and put geraniums in them, red, and placed them on the deck where my Father sat for hours, on into the night...