We are now in that dark dip in November, always a tricky place and moreso in recent years. With my dad still in the hospital and the outcome still uncertain, this week we hit the 5 year anniversary of my mother's death and I am just trying to triage feelings and mounting work and general anxiety that is knife sharp and occasionally bleeds out all over the room and people around me. Or it doesn't and I feel alone inside it like a dark lake and I am looking for a board or a broken door to float on. There are no poems here, there isn't time, and outside of some orders, DGP work has been shelved for the coming weeks in favor of getting things done to get paid and pay rent and shit. In between, there are weekly trips to Rockford, which always makes me want to crawl out of my skin--even before illnesses and hospitalizations and this unbearably early dark. I find I have to be away from home base when I also feel I really need to be here--for the structure, for the cats, for some semblance of normality, yet if things go awry, I also want to spend more time with my dad, especially he's unable to turn this around. Without structure, I am completely ragged and wind-tattered most of the time. I feel completely ill-equipped for almost everything. The time there is a vaccuum descend into and re-emerge. This past weekend, a horrific scene in the waiting room that had nothing to do with me rattled me more than I'd like.
I've put a pin in AUTOMAGIC release since poetry is not where my head is, though some may argue that is exactly where it needs to be, but I just can't right now. I still have to make final corrections and adjustments and order the final copies, so maybe in a few weeks I'll feel more like it. Poetry seems pale and inconsequential. Like a game I play sometimes for stupid prizes There are other good things happening in the wings of the current tragic stage, both personal and professional (potentially) but right now I am mostly numb and poised in crash position. I keep thinking if it were summer...not this, not this dark and cold, I could cope better. But then again, maybe not. A friend once told me it was worse to suffer depression in summertime. Like you weren't supposed to be sad or anxious in warm weather, but it was perfectly acceptable in colder weather. I wouldn't know since all of my low spots have occurred in fall or winter. It seems impossible for me to be sad in summer despite what LDR says..
