The Experiment: Day 207 ~ The Healing Rays Of The Sun…

Art can be very healing. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the fact that I started the day drawing, it was actually the first blog post I wrote today, or rather I wrote most of it, but it for some reason took me more down than up. The drawing was all done in blue, my “Blue Period” as it were, and today it was not helping. My best friend Jeff made one of his out of the blue calls and asked me what was wrong. He sensed that I was going through a bad time. I burst into tears when I heard his voice. We talked for a long time and he was very helpful but finally he said, “You need to get outside, you need to be in the sun. Go outside.” I did, and it changed the whole tenor of my day. I sat outside on my deck for an hour with the sun shining on me and I could feel everything changing. I took the picture above as I sat outside feeling as if everything was changed down to the cellular level. It was transformative.

I tend to cocoon in a way that isn’t good for me when I get depressed. I literally will not move from this chair for whole days except to get the dogs out. I freeze to the spot. I sit in a not very bright room and sink into a state of despair. So unhealthy. And I was so depressed I even said to my daughter Rachel, and to Jeff, that I was afraid I would have to go back on medication for depression, I didn’t want to but this depression has really been taking me down. They both agreed, separately, that I was on quite a bit of medication last year and it still didn’t keep the Mobile Crisis Unit from having to be called. And, too, I am suffering a natural situational depression. I have just lost my beloved Tanner. Medication won’t bring him back. Too, all of the things I have been afraid and depressed about, financial things, all the things I wrote about yesterday, those are very real life issues that need to be dealt with, you can’t medicate them away. These scary financial issues are things that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. Anti-depressant medications won’t do a darned thing about that. And being more clear-headed off medication, will enable me to better figure out solutions, not being so numbed from medication that I can’t think straight. That would not serve me well. But the sun does wonders.

Sunshine coming through the canopy of trees that overhang the deck…

It was magical outside. Even though I was sitting there on the deck birds came, just several feel away from me, to the feeders. Delilah and Pugsley ambled about the yard and finally lay beside me on the deck and went to sleep in the sun. I think it did all of us good. I came inside, got dressed, and ran over to the little grocery store a couple of minutes from me and got a roast chicken, a head of romaine lettuce and some vine-ripened tomatoes, and brought them home for dinner, eating the chicken legs sitting right in my car. I hadn’t eaten all day. When I got home I gave my wee pugs some bites of chicken and then sat down here to write this post. Sunshine, fresh air, a bit of good food, and my best friend and daughter saw me through. Each day is a singular unit in time to get through. I am making it one day at a time. It sounds so trite but it is absolutely true. Step by step, inch by inch, moment by moment, I am making it.

I will make it a point to be in the sunshine everyday. Not just dash out to plant something and back in, really sit outside and soak it all up. I have to enjoy it while I can. These are beautiful spring days here on the coast but before we know it we will have the ungodly hot days with suffocating humidity and mosquitoes so thick you can barely be outside without being eaten alive. These are the halcyon days of spring and I really need them now. I will bask in their glory.

I still have things to work through and figure out, many things. Rachel and I talked a lot about them last night when she was here. But for now I just need to get through this grief period and make sense of the world without Tanner. It doesn’t seem as though it would be possible to get through these days and yet I know I will. For now I have gotten through this day. Tomorrow is another day. I am grateful for the gifts of this one.

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. I’m so glad today turned out to be one of the good days, Maitri. I think hard grief teaches us to take the good days when we get them and let them help us. Hopefully you’ll have more of them as the week unfolds.

    • Thank you so much Moira. The thing that I thought I knew, that I’ve said often, that I’ve taught, and written about so often, the “one day at a time” thing sounds so easy and we think we know it so well but we don’t, we forget, we have to learn it over and over again. I am learning it again now. If I can remember this I will make it through. And all of you dear ones who come here, who leave me these notes, are companions on the journey. Thank you so much. You are among the greatest, more precious gifts of my life…

  2. During the aftermath of my divorce, sometimes the only thing I could do was to sit in the sunshine and weep. It was as though sunlight were recharging my batteries. Moving at all was the first improvement, then going outside did the rest of the day’s healing.

    • Oh dear Kathleen… I’m so sorry you had to go through such pain, but, in the end, do any of us get by without encountering it at some time for some reason? I’m so glad you found a way to get through, that sitting in the sun healed your tender heart. May we each remember this truth and implement it as we can. Thank you for being here dearheart. I am holding your hand across the miles…

  3. You are making it. Clear headed and supported. Proud of you. Keep it up! Made me think of John Denver’s song, remember “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy!” So glad Jeff called you!
    Love you, gf.

    • Thank you Noni, and of course I will keep it up because whatever other choice is there? And yes, my sweet Jeff, he has stood by me for more than 20 years, he is my sweetheart…

  4. Yes sunshine can absolutely do wonders! I’m so glad you got outside in the sun. No it did not sound trite at all. This was very meaningful. I, too, tend to curl up and not move when depressed. Moving does help too!

    Much Love, Jean

    • Dear Sweet Jean, oh, that paralysis that comes from depression can be debilitating. This morning I had to get up, before I really wanted to, because I was cold and had that shaky kind of feeling that comes before a bad bout of anxiety, the kind where you end up shaking so hard you cannot stop shaking and it rattles your whole body relentlessly. I got a grip on it before it happened, got up and got the dogs out, fed them, made my coffee, heated my weighted neck wrap with lavender sprinkled on it and am sitting here in my shawl and under my lap quilt. I feel like each day I am fighting for my well-being, It is so scary. Please pray that my angels can help me through this. It is a cool morning. I hope the sun comes out again today. If it does I will sit in the sun again. I have to do everything that I can to get through this. I am trying so hard…

  5. “into the light” is one of my favorite chants, given to me one day when i was walking in the park and was SUFFUSED by the brilliant rays of the sun filling my vision, and my body. i felt mystically connected as an energy form with the sun, not separate, and it was so redemptive, so thrilling, to be “one with the light.” so yes, as i told my visiting friend today , “I am a sun worshipper.” wrinkles be damned!

    grateful you remembered (again) that nature, the sun, the plants, the clouds, the birds, are all offering us their healing properties, the gentle rain, the beams of moonlight, the twinkling stars…

    xox
    ka

    • Thank you so much dear Katya, you are such a brave, strong woman. It is lovely hearing about your connection with the sun and all things in nature. I know that they are healing, I am trying, I really am, each day I try, but these days are hard. I am holding on, I am holding on hard, I am praying for help through this, please hold me in your heart…

      M. xoxox

  6. Julia Ferry says

    I love spring … winter was the time to mourn all things we must face and let go of….. Spring i plant seeds into the earth and I always place what i still have mourned within me and ask the seed to grow and help me to let new growth within me…

    As each seed grows and I take care of it and I will feel connected with the earth and water and the sun and the wind and the sounds of nature around me ….

    Winter we tend to be depressed… each of us in our own ways… and like my Mama says that is okay… you just can’t stay there.. you take baby steps forward or sideways but you keep going … and before ya know it spring is here and you smile …

    I cant wait for the first warm rain so I can dance around in it.. I smile seeing me on my swing and blowing bubbles … I smile as I work and build my gardens … I smile wearing my garden shoes … I smile and listen as the wind talks to me with my windchimes and the leaves…

    But for right now … I am depressed and that is okay … I breathe drink my coffee and the get up .. time to fold the laundry 🙂

    • Oh Julia honey I’m so sorry to read that you are depressed, I’m so so sorry… These days are so hard, I know. I had to get up earlier than I would have liked because I was cold and feeling a bout of anxiety coming on. I’ve taken care of the babies, made my coffee, I am here. I am holding onto you and hugging you close. May the sun shine upon us, may it warm us down into our soul, may these hard days pass. I am sending you so much love…

      • Julia Ferry says

        Thank you love, I to am sending love to you…. and yes it is still snowing .. I laugh to myself …

        • Thank you for the love Julia honey, and snow! I can’t imagine! Well stay warm and I hope you get some sunshine even in the snow. It is another day. I enter it with a hopeful heart…

  7. Thinking of you, that’s a beautiful picture of you in the garden. I hope the sun shines for you today. Sending love and hugs to you and the pugs. xxx

    • Thank you Jenny, you are so kind. And I had hoped to be back out on the deck in the sun again today but it was cold and overcast and never got sunny. Hopefully tomorrow the sun will be shining. I am just about to do today’s blog post, a little late, but I’m here… 🙂

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