Cause black is how I feel on the inside.

TW: I’m going to talk about depression with a brief reference to suicidal ideation.

It’s been said that when we can no longer see the sacred in our lives, our inner flame has gone out. Those are the best words I can conjure to describe depression.

I’m lucky, I suppose. I’m not often there, “there” like it’s a place. And it does feel like a place, like a room that you walk into and the walls are lined with funhouse mirrors where you don’t even recognize yourself. If you can even muster the energy to look, that is. If you do lift your head to have a glimpse though, you wonder, “Have I always had this very long face and short little body? I guess I’ve always been this way. Why didn’t anyone bother to tell me that I’m ridiculous? Of course no one loves me, I’m unloveable and I will always be unloveable. The end.”

When I’m there, in that room, I’m there for a while before I recognize my new and unfamiliar surroundings. If it was that I just couldn’t get out of bed or that suddenly my food tasted bland or if I couldn’t stop crying, then my brain would be more satisfied with the logic and linearity of it: Bland food + Incessant crying = Depression. I wish it were that easily identifiable. It creeps in like a whisper. It makes suggestions that I would normally cock my head at, like, “Are you talking to me? Are you sure you’ve got the right person? (scoff) I don’t want to die!” And then before I know it, I can’t even remember a time that I didn’t want to die. Giant head, tiny body.

And just like I never know the exact point I’ve entered the funhouse mirror room, I’m also not aware of my exit. It starts as a slow unveiling of the sacred again and then in a final act of completion, like She’s taking a dramatic bow, God hands me a serendipitous moment. I had not one but two of those over the weekend, two more yesterday. As much as I love the magic of kismet, I don’t know if it really pays the bill for depression. I may have to get back to you on that one.

Here is what I really wanted to tell you: making things with my hands was all I could do. There was no planning. I couldn’t even make a to-do list, but I could sync my breath to my stitches long enough to make it out of that room. If you experience depression, I hope there’s something in this story that helps you. Art continues to remind me of its persistent potency, even when I can’t manage a single productive thought. Especially.

To honor that benevolent flame, I’m extending my Fall Fire Sale to the end of this week (Sunday, the 7th). You can still enter FIRE2021 to get 25% off anything in my Marketplace. There are still lots of pretty, handmade items. I have many new items to add too and will be working on photographing and listing those after Sunday.

The drive of excitement, the vitality that lives in human connection, that is the sacred for me. When your flame reignites, gratitude is easy. Tell me, what is sacred for you right now?