Depression is something I’ve been dealing with all my life. Of late it has been easier to cope with and it has been less frequent but yesterday was nasty. The old black cloud rolled in with a storm on its back. It tumbled through the day and into the evening with such force that I could not even bare to be awake. I succumbed. Before the sun had even set, with a faint prayer for a better day on my lips, I went to sleep, hoping beyond hope that I would sleep through until morning.
With the frost seemingly a thing of the past, I had opened my bedroom window thinking some fresh air would help with the sleep. It did, and it helped even more with the waking. After only one short interruption to my rest and nine and half hours of sleep I woke to the birdsongs of spring. It was magnificent.
Reaching for my phone I opened the Merlin app which identifies bird songs. It could hardly keep up. It was flashing back and forth from bird to bird it had identified and sometimes caught four or five songs at once. I had a choir outside the window and couldn’t help but smile.
More rested than I have been in weeks, I made my way toward the French press and the kettle. I had wakened in time to take some time with my morning coffee and my journal before heading out to work. Things didn’t feel quite so heavy.
The past three weeks have been challenging. I had worked every day for 21 days straight. It’s not that my work is grueling. I always have time to take breaks in my day and the writing part of my day I love but there just hasn’t been any entire day that I wasn’t looking at some sort of deadline or demand. A week and half ago I wrote about the overwhelm and the need for some Sabbath rest and then I kept going without it. (Blog Post April 19)
There has been some emotional turmoil of late too. Some dates that are not easy. There was a trip through some old journals and some memoir writing which stirred up some difficult reflections. Then I had a head on collision with my mortality when I held my first great grandchild. A treasure to behold yet I will not likely see him grown.
.
As my head began to droop on my chest last evening I had no choice but to give myself rest. My body and my brain both quit at the same time.
The songs in the window at 6:30 am began a day of restoration. They were only the start. Leaving the house I listened with the help of the bird song app again. Even more varieties of birds joined in the chorus.
Spring is exploding around me and with fresh eyes and a lighter heart I was able to see the thousands of blosoms - maybe billions - which are dotting the landscape close to home. The apple and cherry blossoms in the orchards are in their spledor. Driving down Main Street in town there seemed no end to the blooms of magnolia and gardens, including my own are full of the bright reds of tulips.
A smile was beginning to emerge in my heart. Putting on the brakes in the middle of an intersection the smile turned to laughter as a mother duck stood, uncertain of which direction to lead her clutch of ducklings. They were smaller than the palm of my hand and all their fluffy cuteness caused a ripple of joy in and outside of the bus.
Thank you Lord, for a brighter day and for laughter
I love the start of the day with the realness of dark and bleak turning into the innate duck tale.