Pulling out of depression/anxiety

Well, I intend to pull out... I realized over the past couple of days that I'm experiencing a feeling I haven't had for some time. It's a tightness in the back of my throat, and a feeling that I could start crying at any moment. I find myself thinking back to times when (in retrospect it seems) I was happy or content. I remember thinking "I have a nice life." Not always, but I did used to think this. I try not to dwell on loss, but I am dwelling on the future these days. I got a mailing from Rosie's Place, a shelter for women in Boston. The letter told of a 76-year-old woman who ended up out on the street. (She was a teacher, retired, and got very sick. Her pension ran out. It can happen to anyone was the gist of the letter.) Do I think I'll be out on the street? Not immediately. But I am well aware of the homeless men in town who walk past the row of houses where I live and stop by all the garbage bins, checking for cans or bottles. This morning a man, bearded with funky, 70s style sunglasses on, was empty handed. Later today I saw him on another street with a bag that was pretty well filled.

But anyway, to the point of all this. I'm going to yoga class tonight with my wonderful first teacher, Anne (Prabhjot is her spiritual name). I fully expect the class to offer some healing. Something about doing Kundalini yoga, especially in a group, really uplifts me. Yogi Bhajan, the dude who brought this yoga to the West from India and began teaching teachers, would have said that the yoga teacher is a forklift. You have to lift up your students, he said. Your students should be 10 times better than you. I am a teacher, too, and I struggle with sparsely attended classes, but I still feel it's important for me to be there and uplift my few students.

I've been talking to God a lot lately too. For a long time I would cringe at even hearing someone else say the word "God." I guess it seemed linked with fanatic extreme, fundamentalist types to me. Lately I feel as if I'm moving toward my god, like a salmon inexorably swimming upstream, or migrating birds or butterflies. It's like this need to come home to something.

I'm hoping my god-directedness and keeping up with Kundalini yoga will help pull me out of these sinking feelings. I can't afford a shrink or anti-depressants right now. That is a luxury for the few, I'm beginning to realize.

Financial anxiety

I've been out of work for over a year. A year and three or four months now. I'm not the only one, I know that. I do freelancing to survive, although last year at least there was some help from unemployment insurance. Last week I met with my tax lady. She's a genius, but I'm still going to have to pay big bucks this year. I'm kind of getting into that mode of anxiety, will I make it? Can I make it? I'm planning on living on a very small amount of money per month, unless I can get other work. The whole healthcare issue is another thing. I've been sending out resumes right and left and trying to apply for local "stupid jobs." They are stupid in that no one can possibly live on the pay (minimum wage or a little more.) But I need the healthcare the stupid jobs can offer me. However, even the stupid jobs aren't hiring me. The job I applied for that would have been a $5,000 cut in pay in December turned me down.

I really need to do a lot of yoga to fight off this financial anxiety. A good, easy and doable exercise is just standing up, putting your arms out horizontally and moving them like a seesaw as you inhale one side up, exhale the other side up. The arms have to stay in a straight line from each other. The breath should be deep and full. A couple of minutes of the exercise will relieve anxiety.

Sat Nam (Truth is my identity.)

Skinny is as skinny does?

I'm on and off obsessing about weight. I just don't want to be as fat as I am, which is definitely overweight but still at the point where I can look at other women my age or younger and think, "I'm not that bad, yet!"

So the fact that I think that makes me wonder how my skinnier friends look at me. Do they make a moral judgment on people who are heavier? I tend to assume so, but maybe that's just me being paranoid. I know when I see someone with bigger rolls than mine I say (inwardly) "But for the grace of god..." It's not that I eat that much--of course every overweight person says that. And as I have aged (in my 50s) I notice that everything sticks to my body like it never did before. I think I eat pretty healthy, although I do like sweets--honey in my tea and brown sugar in my oatmeal and a cup or so of ice cream at night or a few chocolate chips. But all in all I do eat pretty healthy. I'm staying away from meats except for occasional fish and I honestly don't eat that much bread. I hardly ever eat chips. Well, there is the popcorn thing... when I take myself to a matinee that popcorn smell is so seductive. I have to have it.

So anyway, I feel armored against my skinny friends. I told one of them that I was doing the President's Challenge. It's this free thing where you sign up on the web and just log your activity every week. You are supposed to do at least one half hour of exercise for five days a week. I thought that was pretty manageable, and so I signed up. I find that I end up doing more than the half hour, too. So that's a good thing. But getting back to my skinny friend--she told me to keep it up. Am I being too Woody Allenish if I read into that, she's thinking I'm a blimp and I better do something? Of course this is a woman who ate nothing but black garbanzo beans for 40 days in an extreme cleanse. So there is a whole other level there.

Anyway, I would like to get skinnier. I would ultimately like to lose 20 pounds to reach my "happy weight." I may have to bite the bullet and join Weight Watchers. It has worked for others I've seen and the one time I tried it with my husband I was successful (of course I had his moral support or fear of disapproval if I cheated.) But for now I'm three weeks into the President's Challenge and I haven't lost an ounce. I feel better about exercising, it's becoming more of a habit, something I need to fit into my day. But clearly the food has to be looked at.

I don't usually count my yoga as exercise, even though you can count it. I have been doing yoga every day, at least 15 minutes if not 45 minutes a day, and so I'm mainly just counting the stuff I do at the gym and the walking. We'll see...

Health care

I'm applying to the Peace Corps--it's been an ongoing process of over a year now. They tell you they need all these medical exams done, and you can have them done at a federal facility (like a VA Hospital) that PC pays directly, but that will take a long time. Or you can have them done yourself, paying with your own money and/or insurance, and receive set reimbursements for your out of pocket expenditures from the PC. Being unemployed--or self-employed--I have no insurance. But I thought it would be good to try to get this done and receive the (rather paltry) reimbursement from the Peace Corps. I'm really suffering from sticker shock. I found out, for one thing, I have a heart murmur. So I'm supposed to have an echocardiogram--to the tune of $925. I can't afford that (that's like my month's rent and gas bill). God knows what a mammogram will cost, and I'm also supposed to get some exam by a shrink since I have seen a psychologist in the last 10 years. They really seem to want to weed people out in this process. Understandably, I'm sure. We are representing the United States and they don't want us sick or dying over there when we're supposed to be helping villagers dig wells or learn English. I guess my next gambit is to look into the options for using a VA hospital. I tried to contact my PC medical services representative, but am still waiting to hear back from him or her.

But my aspirations for the Peace Corps are fading fast. I'm starting to think just surviving here and maybe doing some volunteer work might be my best option.

Kundalini happiness

It is about as easy to describe why I like Kundalini yoga so much as it is to describe color to a person who has been blind since birth. Maybe that's an exaggeration. But you get the idea. Last Saturday night I went to the local ashram (local means it's about an hour drive) for a gong meditation. In a spacious room with beautifully polished wood floors we lined up on our mats and sheepskins. There were several very large gongs at the front of the room, and a raised stage for the teachers. This was very near the full moon, which I think had been the day before. It was also just after the vernal equinox, so the days are getting longer and there seems to be that renewed energy of spring, despite the continuing cold New England weather.

We did a Kundalini yoga set--Surya kriya, to welcome the sun energy. Then we all laid down on our backs, covering up with blankets, and experienced the gong. The kind of relaxation that I get in a Kundalini yoga class is unlike any other. My mind was busy at first, but then my body started feeling the huge gong vibrations and relaxation crept in. I went through some dreams--I couldn't tell you what they were now. Some people fell asleep.

After we came out of it, we did two meditations with chanting and mudra (hand positions). One was for the full moon and the other was for our creativity. At the end of the class I felt as if I had been bathed in that moonlight. This is what it was like: I remember this feeling as a little child. A feeling of connectedness and yet of my own individual presence. A feeling of safety and completeness. Like the way I used to feel in the summer when I sat in a sunny field across from my house with my arm around my dog, Poochie, who was perfectly content to just sit there with me. That's about the best way I can describe it.

visiting my brother

Yesterday I drove the 3 1/2 hours out to Western Mass. to take my brother out for lunch, in kind of a half-hearted recognition of Easter, a holiday that has hardly seemed relevant to my life for years, since my children were too old to really "need" an Easter basket. But, the world seems to recognize it as a holiday, and knowing the loneliness that accompanies these world-recognized holidays, I tend to want to show some support for my brother and in turn, receive some back from him.

We took a trip to WalMart. He felt he really needed a new vaccuum. I don't relish going to WalMart, but it was surprisingly easy with R. He walked purposefully through the throngs of seemingly stupified people hypnotized by the glitz of material things. I followed him, noticing his worn sneakers with the holes in them. (He assured me in the past that he has other shoes, he just likes wearing these ones.)

As an aside, I should mention that my brother has a mental illness, although I'm not sure what his diagnosis would be today. Over 30 years ago it was schizophrenia, but it might have changed. He seems very normal in most ways, except for the fact that he is reclusive, wears cotton in his ears all the time, and has hardly ever held a job.

Anyway, we got the vaccuum and I persuaded him to pick up a new toilet seat as well. We were in and out of WalMart in record time, and I was amazed. Usually such trips are drawn out and uncomfortable.

Then we went to his favorite diner--pretty much the only place I can persuade him to go out to for a meal. It's a 50s style diner, with posters of Elvis and James Dean on the walls. We ate quite a bit, since I'd decided this was our "Easter dinner." He got a hot roast beef sandwich with gravy and fries and a salad. I had "Veggie linguini" which involved a lot of butter and pasta, but tasted okay. And a salad too. We mostly ate in silence, with comments here and there initiated by me.

At one point I looked at my brother's profile--he was looking out the window. And I noticed his nose hairs--too long. I thought it might be something that could bother me, but it would never be something I would mention to him. He's too sensitive for that and sometimes I feel he doesn't trust me. Then I remembered my father. His nose hairs were long too. I remembered distinctly his nose, large and beautiful to me, and his hands, with the beat-up fingernails--I thought from hammering and building the house I grew up in. I could almost smell my father then, smell the comfort of him. And I was grateful to my brother for reminding me.

Sunday out

I own a copy of the Woody Allen movie, Manhattan. While watching it can be a little -- what's the opposite of deja vu? Presque vu? -- anyway, it's weird because it was way before Woody decided to make his adopted daughter his mistress and then wife. And in Manhattan, he's a 40-something writer having a "fling" with a precocious 17-year-old, Tracy, played by Mariel Hemmingway. He obviously crafted her role to be a middle-aged man's fantasy woman: she's beautiful in an innocent, almost virginal way, but she's sexually rambunctious--"How many times can you do it in one night?" he asks, and she answers, "Well, a lot.." and he snaps back, "A lot is my favorite number." She's also smart and perceptive, and this kind of backfires on him when, since he's fallen for the attractive, neurotic Mary played by Diane Keaton, he attempts to break up with Tracy in a "let her down easy" kind of way. He tries to convince her that their age difference means they could never be a serious couple, and that she has a whole lot of other options. He even starts naming off some of her high-school aged possible suitors, "Biff, or Tommy, or Scooter." She's not buying it. They're, quaintly, having this break-up scene at a soda fountain (probably one of the last existing ones in Manhattan in the 70s). She asks him why he's trying to make it sound like it's to her advantage. He persists, asking how can she think she's in love with him, and what is love anyway? Her answer--so simple and wise-- stands out: "We have laughs. I care about you. Your concerns are my concerns. We have great sex." At one point he tells her to stop being so precocious. He's patronizing and paternalistic, but we know that she is the only "real" character in the film, the only (and how I hate using this word now, it's so overused) authentic person.

There are other lines I love in that movie--it's one of the best for witty dialogue. In another break-up scene, Diane Keaton is getting dissed by her married boyfriend, played by Michal Murphy. She knows what's coming and she won't even look him in the eye. She seems to have a permanent smirk on her face, kind of a wise-guy defense to rejection. He tells her they should stop seeing each other, and she says she knew this was coming. She could tell by the tone of his voice on the phone. "Very authoritative, you know, like the Pope, or the computer in 2001." I have heard that voice, and I'm sure many people have, maybe not in the same context of this kind of relationship, but as a foreshadowing of things to come (usually a loss of some kind.)

And then there is the sad line that I think was possibly a mistake left in because it worked. Diane Keaton has called up Michael Murphy to see if he can come out for a walk. It's a Sunday and she's bored and lonely, but of course he has a wife and has plans with her. Diane Keaton, who obviously usually doesn't take the initiative, says she called him because, "It's Sunday out..." I think she mean to say "It's sunny out," because the day significantly turns rainy when she's finally out walking with Woody Allen and they get soaked. But how sad and plaintive is that "It's Sunday out." She needed to fill up her Sunday and was trying to get out into it, leave her apartment container, and pretend for a while to be "normal." Sundays can be the loneliest days (for me it probably goes back to the discomfort of getting ready for church, my mother's tension around that, and the forced, uncomfortable family dinner in the middle of the day). And "it's Sunday out" seems perfectly descriptive.