Surfing the Great Aural Sea

There’s feeling sad and then there’s clinical depression. Not the same thing.

At points in our lives we will all feel miserably forlorn. It’s unavoidable. Life’s not a boundless, sunny day at the beach; it's not end to end ice cream sundaes that, incredibly, won’t make me fat; it's not a non-stop surprise birthday party with all my far flung pals in attendance; it's not one long, brilliant Hallelujah Chorus. I know…yur shocked. And it sucks, don’t it?

The bricks and bolts of it is that I can’t have ups without downs—none of us can. Life is a wave—a big-ass series of ‘em. Knowing how to surf is key. I need to recognize when I’m feeling sad, accept it, experience it, wallow if need be, eat carrot cake for breakfast (it’s medicinal. NO REALLY!) and then, when ready, pick myself up and move on.

That’s how shit works. Capisce? For those with major league, fer reals depression, Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft and the like are godsends. But, BUT being understandably sad due to some big loss is NOT the same as clinical depression and shouldn’t be treated as such. Period, Exclamation Point and Goddammit!

Instead of prescribing happy pills whenever a patient talks of sadness, maybe Primary Care Docs should recommend Thai Chi classes, biking and/or running clubs, pottery or painting classes, writing workshops, knitting, bird watching—something to absorb, distract and engage the mind. Something to make us remember and feel that life is big and chock full of good shit too.

Just a thought.

There's an interesting post up over at the Jewish World Review Is is really bad to be sad? by Jessica Marshall. Worth a read.

Me? I can’t move forward until I allow myself to feel what I’m damn well gonna feel anyway. Accidents happen, bad behavior materializes, excrement meets the AC when I don’t allow myself to feel the sad, to mourn/grieve.

On that note, I’ve been a little down ever since seeing my neuro-ophthalmologist, Doc Lessell, who's losing his hearing. After our big convo about Aaron Copland, specifically Fanfare for the Common Man, my mondo melancholia over losing music was re-ignited.

The preacher at the end of my friend Brian's memorial service said, you don't get over the loss of a loved one, you just learn to live with it. Grief resurfaces from time to time. Losing music has felt/feels like a death within myself.

I unearthed a box of my old CDs, looking for ones to give to the good doc. He still has time left in the beautiful Aural Sea and I want to share some of the glorious wonderment that's meant so much to me. As I looked though the disks, I found myself wanting to shout at them Why don't you speak to me anymore?! I held them in my hands tightly as though the pressure of my fingers could magically pull the notes out and in, filling my ears, my head with music. Painful.

I've picked out some Copland (which he may already have), Samuel Barber, a collection of Gregorian chants, and I'm looking through a stack of my Kronos Quartet albums to see which one jumps up and says Doc will LOVE me—send me! 

I feel as though I'm setting them free.