Self-care and smarts

 I’m working steadily on my memoir of my experiences with manic depression (bipolar to those of you under age 40. Have I told you how much I hate the term bipolar?)

Swimming in the memories, processing them in new ways, listening to interviews of Jim, my kids and siblings and in-laws, I’m struck with many things.

One is my ‘recovery’ after my third manic episode in 2003. After seven years of faithful, consistent lithium-taking, I stopped, without benefit of medical advice. No, that’s not accurate: after leaving a voice message at the clinic declaring my decision, I received a reply voicemail, telling me, begging me, to take the medication. I blew off the communication with predictable (though not to me) and disastrous results: a psychotic break and a slow and painful return to the land of the sane.

While in the hospital, I listened carefully in the group therapy sessions and took active part, motivated to glean any wisdom the psychiatric profession had to offer. The sunroom where we met had a miniature greenhouse. I asked permission to take cuttings and brought home three: a variety of Saintpauli (African violet) I’d never seen, with small pointed leaves and delicate lavender flowers, a tradescantia zebrina with dusky purple-and-silver striped leaves, and a purple passion plant. (Note the color theme.)

I brought the plants home as a reminder to take care of myself.

Over the years, as the plants got woody, overgrown, and unmanageable, I would pinch off ends with my fingers, place them in a glass of water on the windowsill, wait for roots, and plant the new slips.

Now, 19 years later (the psychotic break was in January 2003), one variety remains: I have three clay pots of purple passion plants.

But when did my striving for self-care supersede my ambition to remain mentally sharp and smart?

My four surviving siblings graciously agreed to be interviewed for my memoir. There were three things they all mentioned as notable: how big an influence for good our brother Michael was on our family culture and on each of us individually, what a big deal my epic cross-country trip was, and how smart I was as a kid.

I was driven to succeed in academics. I desperately wanted to please my research-chemist father. I took Advanced Placement classes in high school and earned a semester’s worth of college credits at Bryn Mawr College, one of the selective Seven Sisters.

But for years I have struggled to remember things I read when I have the bandwidth to read at all. I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks, which helps, but retention is poor. After a few months I don’t remember what I’ve heard.

No one would call me smart now, not at the level, the caliber, of my early, promising years.

I’m not whining (I hope), just trying to get the facts down. Fact: as attested to by each of my surviving siblings, I was the smart one in the family. Fact, I did very well at an academically competitive college. Fact, I’m nowhere near at that level now. When I started taking psychiatric medications, I noticed a dulling, a dimming of my intellect.

When did self-care overtake smart? When smart was no longer an option. I made no conscious decision to give up, but as the years have passed, so has my intellectual sharpness and edge. So it is. 

What will you be when you grow up?

Recently I attended a Relief Society class at church on the story of our lives. The teacher told how her dream as a young woman was to sing on Broadway and drive a pink Cadillac. Now she sings to her two toddlers in a tiny apartment and drives a Toyota.

 

She asked what we had thought we’d be when we grew up. For me, I wanted to be a nun. I explained that they were the rock stars of my childhood in parochial school, at least to me. And they were good role models: smart (they were schoolteachers and knew a lot more than me) and articulate.

I’m still adjusting to being 65. It’s just a number, I say to myself, rather unconvincingly. You’re as young as you feel has no comfort in it: I’m not feeling very young tonight. But I did do my Nerd Fitness workout today. It's okay to feel a little weary at 10 p.m.

Bird nests

 A few weeks ago, Jim and I were having a ‘homework party,’ where we share his office together, each working on their own projects. I saw a flash of orange and brown outside and realized that a robin had just flown to the second-story window ledge. I had seen a nest a few days earlier, from the driveway, but I couldn’t see inside.

When the mother bird flew away, we went to the window and saw four ‘robin’s-egg-blue’ eggs nestled in the grass and twig nest. It brought back sweet childhood memories of my dad lifting me up with his strong arms so I could peer into a nest and marvel at the tiny blue eggs.

Jim was concerned we would frighten the mother, so he put a packing box on the floor and later closed the blinds. We worried that she would abandon the nest, but next day I saw her again. Some days later Jim peeked around the blinds and found an empty nest. We can only guess that something attacked the nest.

A few days later I was looking out my bedroom window at the three-story evergreen tree next to the house. I saw a blue jay nesting. I was shocked: I’d never seen a blue jay’s nest. It gave me a warm feeling about blue jays.

I haven’t always had a warm feeling about them. I’ve always enjoyed their bright-blue plumage. But I had an encounter, probably 25 years ago or more, that left a bitter taste in my mouth.

A friend of ours from church had ‘rescued’ a nest of  three baby sparrows which had dropped out of a tree in her yard. She didn’t have a safe place to put it, so she asked me to foster the birds. I put them in our enclosed front porch and we watched them. As they grew feathers I knew it was time to let them fly. I took the nest out to our yard and watched. One of the fledglings jumped out of the nest and soared away. A second followed suit. But one sat on the ground.

“Go on!” I urged, to no avail. It sat in the driveway, inert.

Then a blue jay swooped down and caught the tiny baby. Shocked, I shouted and shooed it away, but the damage was done: the little sparrow lay dead on the asphalt.

Determined not to reward the jay for its cold-blooded greed, I got a garden spade and dug a hole near a tree where grass doesn’t grow.  I cried bitterly as I dug the grave and gently lowered the bird down. The blue jay had been so cruel, so heartless.

But here, outside my bedroom window, I saw a blue jay lavishing maternal care on her three babies. The day that it rained all day I saw her on the nest, keeping the nestlings dry.

Watching the babies grow has been delightful. A few days ago I looked out and saw a flash of wing, with the distinctive white and black markings on grey instead of blue. The baby nearest my window was stretching halfway out of the nest and spreading its grey and white wings. His nestmate followed suit. I wondered if they would fly away, but it was just a test run. They soon settled back into the nest.

Yesterday morning the heads and chests were well above the top of the nest. They were growing fast. I could see that soon flight will be imperative: they wouldn’t fit in the nest. Just two days ago only their heads were visible. They sat perfectly still, each looking out in a different direction.

This morning the nest was empty. I checked during the day, but they are gone.

Having a tiny blue jay family outside my bedroom window heals my heart of bitterness. It is part of nature, of the environment we cherish, to have predators and prey. If every songbird baby survived, the earth would soon be filled to overflowing and the food supply would run out. Birds by the thousands would die of starvation. Nature has built in restraints: food for the sparrow, blue jay, hawk, owl, and eagle.

Childhood revisited

 I continue to work on my memoir. On November 9th I sent it to my sister Maggie to read. (Thank you, Maggie!) She planned to return it before their Thanksgiving trip to North Carolina.

But they cancelled their trip, Thanksgiving came and went, and she didn’t send it back. Then Lincoln was born and Jim and I drove to D.C., stayed ten days, then drove to Chicago and spent a week with his mom.

Without planning it, Maggie gave me an incomparable gift. From November 9th to January 8th, I entered a magical state of childhood. Each break during college: Thanksgiving, Christmas, even summer, I would cart a heavy suitcase of books home to study. I rarely opened any of them, but the psychic weight was heavier than the suitcase. By the time I graduated from college, the mental habit of always feeling underprepared and inadequate was firmly entrenched.

My third psychotic episode was in 2003. Shortly after I returned home from the hospital, I enrolled in a creative writing class. I dreamed of writing a memoir of our 1995 cross-country trip. Some years later, my focus turned to my manic depression (bipolar). My inaction fed a constant undercurrent of anxiety.

But when I clicked send on November 9th, I was suddenly on vacation. A true six-years-old-and-nothing-to-do-but-ride-my-trike freedom. I couldn’t work on it: it was in Maggie's hands. The weeks stretched on, and I basked in the tranquility.

Is this an indication that I really don’t want to do the project? I don’t think so. I needed the breathing space, the luxury of having nothing to do. The ability to pick it back up on my own terms.

Pruning Christmas cacti

 Perhaps in response to the virus restrictions and more time at home, last summer I tackled my Christmas cactus collection. My mother gave me Christmas cactus clippings over the years: they are easy to grow: a single stem in potting soil will soon root, grow, and eventually bloom. I had one beautiful specimen that cascaded pink blossoms every December in a place of honor on our piano. But when we converted the front room to a library, with floor-to-ceiling shelving, the piano, which was hopelessly out of tune, was removed. I recognized that the cascade had become an awkward, overgrown tenant.

The library is five years old now, so it was high time to take all my cacti in hand. One by one I placed them on an overturned wire-mesh wastebasket on the kitchen island so I could objectively consider their cascading stems (cacti don’t have leaves). To produce a balanced and agreeable effect, I had to prune severely.

The cacti sat on our kitchen porch all summer, shaded from the hot summer sun. With winter approaching, I brought them into my office and David’s room, my adjunct conservatory.

The pruning had its effect: a flower on every last stem.

Slowing time down

 I’ve been studying out in my mind the concept of hypomania. That’s the delicious, intoxicating state below (hypo) mania. In my experience, psychosis is terrifying and not in a good way. Horror stories are fun (for some people, not for me) because they are safe. Whatever horrible thing is happening to the characters, we are safe in our living room or movie theater.

But hypomania isn’t terrifying. Food tastes exquisite; thoughts and ideas flow effortlessly; colors are more vibrant. Everything is breathtaking.

I experienced hypomania this past spring. It never got dangerous. It was seductive.

One of the brilliant ideas I had was that I could slow down time. I found the name of the year, twenty-twenty, enchanting. Until age forty, I had better than twenty-twenty vision: I was far-sighted. (I now have to wear trifocals to see my world sharply.) The possibilities in that name (before the virus) seemed endless and exciting. And suddenly I knew, with certainty, that I could slow down time. Not stop time, but take it very slowly, so that I could enjoy and savor the year and accomplish amazing things.

Describing it now, it reminds me of an experience I had one night in high school. I was at a party my parents didn’t know about, smoking something. As I sat in an unfamiliar kitchen, I looked at the white wall clock with black hands. I looked away and about an hour later glanced back at it. To my amazement, only a minute had passed on the clock face. I did it again and again. Time had slowed for me, how cool was that?

Several years later I realized the truth: whatever the speed of time, I had done nothing but sit. What did it matter if time slowed?

March and April were similar. I thought I had learned the secret to lengthening time, but I had nothing to show for it.

Sadly, November rushes by; time has not slowed. I experience what older people used to tell me: the years are flying faster and faster. The illusion of holding time was just that, an illusion. But it was a pretty thought while it lasted.