Gifts

Gifts

My husband bought me a jewelry box for Christmas this year, even though we'd made a deal not to get anything for each other. It's a huge monstrosity, and I never thought I would even come close to filling it.

This morning, during one of my few and far between fits of organization, I decided to gather all my bits and pieces of gold and silver and fill up the box...

While going through the junk drawer in my dresser (my writers' group would love this, after the last writing assignment I gave them-what's in your character's junk drawer?) I found an old Valentine card from my husband (another thing we agreed not to give...). I knew immediately it was from the year after my daughter was born-she would have been almost a year old.

The card originally read "I'm so glad you're a part of my life" and T. had scratched out the "I" and "my" and replaced them with "We" and "our".

I had to stop, because it brought home how hard he tried to hold things together the year after my daughter was born and I went through such terrible depression. It seemed he took every opportunity to get me to engage, to see us as a unit. He took over everything-cooking, cleaning, child care, making sure obligations with family and friends were met.

It also made me aware of just how much that time is still a part of me, of my sub-conscious. My consciousness. It's still part of my story, and I tell it the way some girls tell their bad-boyfriend stories to their new loves. If you are going to be my friend, you need to know just how crazy I can be. It came out recently(as a bit of an off-hand joke-I can do that now) , at a party where I met a mom who some would say is a bit of a local celebrity. Her reaction? "Well, you better never let your daughter know you felt that way."

I think it was meant as a joke, but maybe not.

So I thought about that as I sorted through my "jewels." I never really thought I had much, but I have some really beautiful pieces:

• The vintage locket my grandma sent me through Canada Post (!) complete with tiny pictures of her and my grandpa.
• The glass pendant I bought in N. Manitoba this year-the one with the two blues that remind me of the lake I write about
• The charm bracelet I received when I was 5.
• The sapphire ring T's granny gave me twenty years ago-the one her dad bought her mom with the money he earned in the trenches of WW1.
• My Italian charm bracelet with all the goofy charms my kids have given me - best mom, a Tweety Bird for my daughter, a rainbow for my son. Polar bears, and angels.
• The silver Celtic knot my friend Peggy bought me.
• The angel pin T's dad always wore on his shirt to remind him of T's mom.
• The emerald-green dragonfly choker T bought me a year after he gave me that Valentine. (I guess to celebrate getting better?)

So, gifts. And depression. Well.

I remember my doctor, trying to convince me that meds were the answer, told me that some of her post-partum patients said that depression was like seeing things in black and white, then medication helped them see in colour again. I thought that was a pretty good metaphor, for a science major.

But for me, it was more like I was missing only one colour. So things were just a half-twist from normal. It wasn't that all colour was gone, just one was. Like all the blue would be missing, or all the red. I always knew I was messed up, and I knew there was an answer, I just didn't know how to make that one colour come back. Seemed harder, somehow.

So I took these two pics, over two years apart of Lizard Creek at Mount Fernie Provincial Park.

And it made me think of that black and white thing.

Take a look.

Same creek. Different perspective. Both are actually in colour, but you can't tell, because all that lush green is dormant. So maybe depression is more than black and white. Maybe it is winter. And "hang in there, buddy, summer will come!"

There's something to this, and I think after 5 years of being called to write about that time, I may be ready to start. I am sure it will make its way into my fiction eventually, but what is percolating now is non-fiction, for sure. I just need to settle on my angle.

And when it is done, it will be something I can show my daughter, because there will always be winters to get through. And maybe part of it is seeing the beauty in winter, but I think knowing that the change of season will come is important, too.

And the gifts, the jewels in my life are a good place to start. I appreciate the gift my daughter is. She is even more precious for the rough start we had together.

You don't know what you have until you untangle it from the costume jewelry, or until you dig it out from a junk drawer. Or until the snow melts and the creek starts flowing again.

Song of the Week-When it Don't Come Easy - Patty Griffin

Book of the Week- A novella, actually- Translations of April by Heighton. (Found in On Earth as it Is)