I am a Children’s Librarian living in the Portland, Oregon area. When I am not Children’s Librianing I like to play with cameras and film. I also like playing the ukulele, knitting, sketching, and hiking.
I just this very minute finished reading The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin. Wow. What wonderfully, fantastically, tragically sad book.
The book is actually a fictional letter written by Matthew to his little sister, Emmy. He writes it because he wants her to know about her mother:
I have decided to write it all down for you, and I will, but that decision doesn’t keep me from having doubts. I wonder if maybe it would be better if you never read this. I wonder if you really need to know exactly what happened to us – me, you, Callie – at the hands our our mother.
How’s that for a good opening? Mother is not very nice, either. She is more than just not nice. She is a horror show. This book chronicles the way the three siblings got away from thier mother. They enlist the help of a man named, Murdoch. Matthew meets Murdoch one day in a grocery story when he comes to the aide of a little boy who is being abused by his mother. When Matthew sees this he knows that Murdoch can save them. So he finds a way to befriend him and, eventually, encourages him to help them get away from their mother.
Like I said, this is a tragic book. Great story, though. I couldn’t put the book down. Highly recommend it.
Okay. I woke up this morning depressed again. I couldn’t sleep last night because I’ve just kind of been worried about life. I have kind of been shuffling around the house this morning totally unmotivated. I already blew off exercising for knitting, which I think was a good thing because knitting calms my nerves. (Except when I’m knitting Pomatomus, apparently.)
So anyway, I have awhile before I have to go to work, so I thought I would spin a little and listen to the latest podcast of Democracy Now. When I turned on the iPod I accidentally clicked “play” when the “Music” menu was selected. If your iPod is set to “Random Play,” which mine is, it will randomly play songs from the entire list of music on the iPod.
Okay. Can you guess which song, out of thousands, it decided to play?
Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)
Singin: dont worry bout a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin: dont worry (dont worry) bout a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right!
The Universe is speaking to me! Thanks Mr. Marley! 🙂
I’ve been working on the Pomatomus sock pattern this past week. It’s been frustrating for me. There is something about the pattern where my brain kind of forgets to add the yarn over several rows in a row and then at some point I realize that I have, like, six fewer stitches than I am supposed to have and i can’t really figure out how to fix it. At one point on the leg I decided that I needed to frog and start over. then this morning, I got as far as the gusset before I discovered another screw up. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. So I just got pissed and threw a tantrum. Over my knitting. I threw the unfinished sock across the room, flipped it off, frogged the mother-fucker, and, in a final act of defiance, ripped up the pattern and threw it in the garbage. Then I put the ball of Socks that Rock into my closet. I don’t want to even look at that fucking ball of yarn in a long time.
Lesson learned: When you are flipping off your project it’s time to back slowly away from the knitting and move on.
I want to say a hugemungous THANK YOU to Cathi, Karma, and Susan. It really makes things better knowing people are there, sending good thoughts my way. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m feeling better. I felt a little more like myself yesterday and that was good.
I just came back from Raw Space. I didn’t mention this, but I entered three of my photographs into an art exhibit that went on all weekend. It’s called Raw Space because they allow anyone from the community to enter thier work. My mom is a watercolor artist and does really fantastic work. She was entering some of her paintings and she talked me into entering some of my photographs.
Okay. The day I went in to put up my pictures I felt like such a dork. A serious dork. What the hell was I thinking? My stuff looked stupid next to the incredible pieces that were there. ugh. I felt kind of stupid. But at the same time I was, and am, proud of myself for actually doing it. At least I took that step. That’s something, right?
Well, I got a message on my cell phone Saturday morning. The docent from Raw Space called Friday night to tell me that someone had bought one of my photographs (it was this one)! I couldn’t believe it! Then she said the name of the person and I kind of smiled to myself. It was one of my collegues from work. He bought one of my pictures :). I thought it was very sweet. He kind of knew that I was feeling down. I thought it was a very kind gesture of him. It made me feel good. I just felt kind of bad taking money from him since he’s kind of a friend of mine. I went into work and saw him and thanked him from the bottom of my heart. The self-conscous part of me kind of thought he bought it to make me feel better, but he was very sincere when he told me he loved my work. He said that he turned the corner, saw the colorful picture, and said, “he had to have it.” He wants to hang it up in his living room to help chase away the winter doldrums. How cool is that? I’m so happy that he likes it :).
So part of having your stuff in Raw Space is having to put in some sweat equity. I went down there today and worked two hours. I really enjoyed being around the artists and the art. It was so inspiring. I want to do that. Create. I don’t know how, but I want to. How does one come up with art? Where in the brain does it come from? I want to do that!
One piece in particular was really inspiring. At first glance it looked like a woven scarf hanging on the wall. In fact, as I was looking at it one lady said to another, “Look, that looks like one of your green, fuzzy scaves.” But then when you looked at it more closely it became apparent that it was not what it seemed on the surface. The first thing you see are pieces of moss attached to the fabric. Then as you look more closely you see bird feathers, sticks, even a lobster claw here and there. But the strangest part about it was that it was being held up by turkey feet. Yes you heard that right. Turkey feet. kind of disturbing. Looking at it more closely I noticed that this wasn’t fabric at all. It was plastic wrap. So the whole thing was totally decieving. It looked like something that it wasn’t. I thought it was really cool.
I have been really, really struggling with depression lately. I’ve never felt it this bad before. I have certainly had my depressed moments, as anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time has concluded, but this more recent bout has been really difficult. The past couple of days I have felt like I don’t know who I am. It’s as if someone else is living in my body. I’ve been crying at the drop of a hat. Yesterday morning before work I curled up on the floor in the fetal position and just cried. For no apparent reason.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I have been having some stress in my life. But I’ve always managed to get through stress without crumpling into a blubbering baby. This has been different. It definately feels like a chemical thing. Now I know why people choose to go on antidepressants. I’m almost at that point myself.
I do feel better today. Again, I have no idea why I feel better today. My problems are still there. But I feel more like myself. I hope I stay this way for awhile. I really don’t want to go back to that place where I have been the past few days.
I’m wondering if I have S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder.) It has been dark here in Spokane and cold for weeks and I am wondering if it’s getting to me. I remember when I was a kid I would get really depressed this time of year. There was one time in particular when I was about six years old. It was around this time of year. It was snowing outside. I remember just staring out the window, looking at the snow falling down, and just crying. It felt like winter would never end and I was sick of it. I felt trapped. That is how I feel right now. Trapped. It’s been very cold now for about a month. Like in the teens and twenties during the day. We’ve been trying to get out to go for walks on the weekend but the cold really makes it difficult to enjoy it. I feel like I need to get out of my house and get out into the wilderness again, but I can’t.
I just this very minute finished reading The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin. Wow. What wonderfully, fantastically, tragically sad book.
