what goes up

What goes up, must come down. Last weekend was a festival of the senses, a decadent dip into the most intoxicating currents of the life force. There is a kickback to running the Feri current, or at least there is for me. I returned to work on Tuesday and found myself traversing the rivers of loss and grief. Two clients lost parents this week. One had to make the decision to pull the plug/ cut the cord of life support for her father. Once removed, he died in a few hours. The other sat with her father as he lay dying. She sobbed as she told me that he spent his last words on telling her that he loved her. In the midst of this, 48 hours before papers were to be signed on Ilyse buying out Patti and Karl and becoming a co-owner of our three-flat building, we found out our loan had not been approved. It’s been a painful week.

Already we are in process of getting a new loan. The deal will eventually go thru. I’m familiar with the rivers of loss and grief; I’ll be a good guide for my clients. And meanwhile, I’m allowing myself to sink down into depression, something I usually set about scrabbling out of as quickly as possible. I'm decsending into grey, a grey which muffles the vibrancy of the living world. Some people call this the blues. Holly Golightly termed it “the mean reds”. I appreciate these monikers, they resonate with me on some level, but for me, this sinkhole is a grey one.

Time and time again, I’ve used every wit and wile to run from this terrain, to seek higher ground. Not this time. I’m going to stay put and let the sinking feeling pull on me and I’m going to give in. I’m going down, trusting somehow that I’ll come back up. Or maybe I’ll go so far down, like the hole to China I optimistically dug as a child, I’ll come out on the other side. How bad could it get? Well, there’s the rub! Having a father who committed suicide, I know just how bad it can get. It struck me hard, as my client sobbed, just how precious it is to hear a parent say they love you as they approach the gates of death. That surely wasn’t on my father’s lips as he threw himself headlong at those gates. Love was not the current he was swimming in. He was swirling down in the grey sinkhole. I can sit with clients who have the grey around them, patiently exploring methods of climbing out. But, my god, it scares me to go into this myself. In the past, when I’ve started to feel this way, I’ve become franticly busy, or forced myself to do art. The truth is, even writing this I’m staving off the sinking down. But somehow, as I type these words, I’m finding the courage to sign off and sink down, with no escape plans, especially the kind my father hatched. Weekends like the last one have made me strong enough to face weekends like this one. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.