I have been ill for quite some time. I refuse to label it. It is, after all now a part of me, intrinsic to who I am. Its fair to say I'm used to it and the oddly comforting relationship I have with the dark, black cloud that hangs over me for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time. It ebbs and it flows and I feel safe, secure, knowing that just like the tide as it recedes from the sands it will eventually subside.
I never know how long for or when it will happen but the very moment it does begin to disperse the world changes. maybe I change? I notice things with clarity, the world no longer seems foggy and grey but clear, awake and to be savoured.
I no longer just cope through the rigorous routine, the almost constant exhaustion and broken sleep. I begin to 'do'. My desire to make things sets off at a ferocious speed. Ideas come quickly, thickly and I almost need to tell my muse to stop. I work hard, careful in my attempts not to burn out again for fear of another dark arduous slump.
Time is spent admiring the things that usually pass me by in a haze. The hawthorn as it comes into the leaf. The fuzzy buds on the branches as they swell with each passing day and begin to open. The birds that make their home in my garden and often share the crusts from breakfast and a few slices of apple. It had never seemed relevant.
I know things are getting better, my kitchen table has become a mass of cookbooks, new herbs and spices I'm eager to experiment with. The floor of my studio is littered with an incomprehensible assortment of sketches, the drawn out ramblings from my mind that somehow come together. Piles of books form from the ones I have read waiting to be donated or read again. My hands have the lingering aroma of darkroom fixative. My windows, they are scrubbed clean and thrown wide open. A ritual of sorts to force out the stagnant air that has held me down for so long.
I cope in only the ways I know how. Enjoy the moments of bliss when I can and hope that the next bout doesn't last so long.
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