Brick by Brick

My failure to update is itself a useful commentary on the power of blocks and how difficult it is to overcome them. I've had more than one, not just artistic. In school I had a problem with written homework. Right after high school I had a block that made my mind go blank every time I tried to write to Dana or Akiko.

This blog threatens to become a wall of text. I promised myself not to post (much) without visuals, theory being to force myself to come up with some. It's been easier to work on physical projects, and while those have moved forward there's nothing yet worth showing. I have a commission now, though (a drawing, that makes two that are priorities), and that should help, and I've picked up some Mod Podge for an experiment involving colored foil.

(Oh – this morning I saw a PBS special about restoring the art in Buddhist temples in Tibet. The original artists used paint that was colored with crushed gem stones. How luminous those colors must be! I would dearly love to see those murals in person.)

It isn't the block that's sapping my will, it's the depression. This past week it's been pulling me back down the well.

I used to know someone who couldn't grasp that she meant something to the people around her, that her sudden unexplained absences always blew holes in people's lives and hearts. She didn't mean to hurt anyone, it just wasn't real to her that she did. I'm wondering whether that might be the case with Dana too.

Anyway, it doesn't mean anything to you, the reader. What I want to communicate to you is that pain distorts vision. Depression changes the way you see the world and your relationship to it, to the people around you. When you are in pain you cannot understand the world clearly, and that creates barriers between you and the people who care about you. It takes away your strength, and it is self-feeding. Therein lies the vital warning for anyone suffering depression: the more you indulge it, the more it alters your brain chemistry to take you entire. Trust me, I know from experience and I've seen it at work in people I care about. Be vigilant. Don't indulge your sadness.  When you catch  yourself thinking about it, force yourself to stop.  If you don't, you will tip further.

Dana...neither of us did anything wrong, and neither of us has anything to be forgiven for.  Dana was afraid that I thought the worst of her, yet she refuses to be told that nothing could have been further from the truth.  She won't hear that I admire her, respect her, that I care about her, and that I'm proud of being her friend. I was then and I am now. There was never a time that I was not on her side.  I'll stand by her anywhere.   But she's not having it. It's as if her imagined condemnation is her armor and lifeline, she can't give it up. She put up a wall and there is no way of knowing whether she wants to tear it down. She won't say.

Sometimes I wonder whether she is offended by people caring about her. About half the time I think she hates me. Honestly, I don't know that she doesn't. What I do know is that she's aware that I think this, and she goes on letting me think it. I don't know if she's aware just how much it hurts.

If she's worried I won't be able to understand her, well, silence is the way to make sure I never do.