Down and Out in Paradise

 

          Down and Out in Paradise

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You know how sometimes you can be thinking about a friend or an acquaintance and the phone will ring and suddenly you are talking with that person? This is sort of how my last few weeks have been but with a wry twist.

I have been hearing from people with whom I’ve not spoken in a while, friends and acquaintances. Their words mirror my feelings.

“I don’t know if it is the long winter or all the horrible news and strife in our country but I can’t seem to find my balance. My equilibrium is out of whack.”

“I turned 70 and my body betrayed me. Macular degeneration in both eyes and some days my hips won’t let me walk. My use-by date seems to have come and gone.” (Wait until you hit 80, I thought, but am too kind to say.)  

“I want to lose myself in gardening but I can’t even seem to be able to do that.”

 “We’ve lost another friend. Did you hear that Terri (or Mike or Bob) died last week?”

I could go on and on but what every example, said and unsaid reveals, is that we, my friends and I, have all found ourselves mired in the murky bottom of a slough of depression.

My friends are my mirror, so I’ll speak of myself.

I don’t feel exactly the same way every day. I’ve mild depression with variations on the theme. Some days I’d tell you I feel discouraged, down in the dumps, flat. Other days I might say I’ve no strength. Go away and leave me alone. My energy has up and gone.

Clinical depression is an entirely different matter. My malady is plainoldnormaleveryday depression. It is sad that we all feel so dejected at the same time. Usually, one of us can bring the other out into the sunshine of hope.

Which leads me to a really weird postulation. What if this is the way I’m (we) should feel? Look at it this way. I’m in one of my latter cycles of physical change. Some days it seems nothing works the way it used to work. I read the obits just to make sure my name isn’t listed. I’m grieving lost family, lost friends, lost chances, lost functions, lost country.

For example, last night Michelle and Ana and I climbed the stairway to my roof to pick guamuchil pods, here known as Mexican candy. This is the week of a special celebration local to the peoples of this area. While extracting one of the legume-like white fruits and popping it into my mouth, I looked across to the adjacent mountain. A long line of folks dressed in bright costumes trooped up the mountain in procession.

“Ten years ago, just ten years ago I could walk that pathway,” I said to my friends. I might still have been walking up while they were coming down, but I could have done the trip.

What I’m struggling to say is that maybe mild depression is simply a reaction to all that is around me, my present circumstances, not good, not bad, just the way it is.

Rather than fight it, why not accept the feelings and do what I always do anyway. Talk to my geraniums. Prune the oregano. Talk with my friends. Read. Watch the birds. Eat ice cream. Let Lola bury her slobbery muzzle on my white pants and look into my eyes, tail wagging.

I’ve even got a new therapy. Now that we are well entrenched in our hot season, I’ve begun walking the swimming pool, end to end, turn and back. I’m doing this for my knees and hips and back. Walking the pool (I never learned to swim) seems to be good for both body and soul.

Whatever I feel today, this I know: tomorrow I will feel differently. I may not feel better, but I will feel different.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

May 8, 2025

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________