Cocktails

 I just discovered something about my psychiatric medication regime. I take a cocktail.

Years ago, when I began attending DBSA Boston (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance) during the day, I heard about cocktails. “I take six different medications, a cocktail” someone would say. I would be grateful I wasn’t doing that.

Why was I against taking a cocktail of medication? For one thing, I’ve never really adjusted to the fact that I take any medication every day. “Better living through modern chemistry” has never been a motto of mine.

I’ve always assumed that it was somehow virtuous to take the fewest medications possible. I often wonder if I really need to take exactly what I do. The cocktail treatment is experimental, as far as I can see. I’m not aware of double-blind studies of the efficacy of any of the myriad combinations of psychotropic drugs. How could there be; there are so many possibilities.

Recently, at DBSA, I asked, “What exactly is a medication cocktail?” Several people assured me that two drugs taken together constitute a cocktail. In that case, I first took a cocktail back in 1996, when my psychiatrist added an anti-depressant to my lithium. And since 2003, I’ve been having cocktails every day: three drugs. Who knew?

Oma Duty

 For the past thirteen days, our big house has been blessed with additional occupants: three-year-old Eliza and twelve-week-old Link (Lincoln) (he was ten weeks old when he arrived) and their parents, Sam and Savannah. As I discovered last summer, when Eliza stayed with us for ten days while Sam and Savannah drove from California to D.C., tending young children is exhausting at age 64. Sam and Savannah have been working everyday (the only way this visit has been possible is with remote employment) and we've watched our young charges each afternoon.

At first, Link was evidently not happy with the level of care, and I put an emergency call out to my trusty Relief Society (our church's women's organization): baby swing needed!

The swing has made a huge difference to my sanity, just as when we had babies back in the eighties. Swings have changed over the years. Our lime-green thrift-store special sported a hand crank, four long, thin aluminum legs.  and a vinyl sling for a seat. The swing we borrowed takes two people to move and must be rated to withstand a magnitude five earthquake. It's electric and has settings for various sounds and music (who knew a child needs to hear "Greensleeves" in the first year of life?)

Link can get very hot and bothered, but when he's calm, it's magical. His dark blue eyes, startling under the mop of dark brown hair, sparkle and he chortles with glee. My heart melts. Every day he changes, a little more interactive, a little more in control of his body.

Eliza is a self-possessed young girl. I'm delighting in sharing my favorite children's books with her. Today it was Hey Al by Arthur Yorinks, illustrated by Richard Egielski. In 1986, it won the Caldecott Medal for illustration. She loves it as much as I do.

Piercing the windowpanes

 The late-winter sunshine continues to enchant me. It pierces the windowpanes and falls on the oak floorboards.

A friend of mine commented that the days will get longer in two weeks. Of course, the clock change doesn’t make the days longer, but sunset will suddenly be an hour later.

I remember how devastating daylight savings was all those years when I drove our high school students to early morning seminary class. Through January and February the sunrise gradually came earlier and earlier. Then, with an abrupt brutality, the clocks were set forward and our risings were plunged into darkness again. Then, as the equinox passed and Helios moved towards the summer solstice, the sun would rise over Route 2 again.

With the pandemic, I spend more time in my house, but I’m more in tune with the sun and seasons than ever. Last year I was out and about, rushing to appointments and in perpetual danger of being late. This year I watch the sun rise out my window and feel its energy at midday.