The Weather Inside

Beware the cold, you, warm-blooded creature! Protect those delicate fingers! Defend those vulnerable toes! For I will pinch them till they are blue. I will breathe my icy breath across your skin until your blood retreats deep beneath the surface. From safe inside your walls, you watch while I encase your window panes in frosty lace and you think me fragile, but at my touch the world stops and whole civilizations stand still. You know the dangers of my kiss, yet my beauty draws you out of the warmth and into my frigid world. Abide with me and soon you will not feel the cold. Soon you will gladly sleep at my feet, forgetting the fire, forsaking the sun, surrendering to the winter that never ends. Inspired by The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.  

Winter depresses me. The gray skies, the cold, the stress of snowbound and icy roads all contribute to a discontent that goes bone-marrow deep. I start to pine for spring almost as soon as the last autumn leaf has fallen and I cling to each milestone that marks our progress toward longer, sunnier days. December’s solstice, the beginning of March, these are the holidays I celebrate each winter, lighting a candle in the darkness of my soul and reminding my battered spirit that seasons soon change. My mother coped with the gray and cold by paging through her gardening catalogs and reminding us of how the sun would feel on our skin and how the flowers would bloom in colorful riot. Not a gardener myself, I consult with the calendar and claim each extra minute of daylight as a down payment on the promise of brighter times ahead.

Hans Christian Andersen knew a thing or two about this coldest of seasons.  In wintertime, Denmark “is ruled by snow, ice and icy winds…and for months the days are dark and short.” So it’s not surprising that in many of Andersen’s tales, the cold plays a pivotal role. Winter as portrayed in The Snow Queen is beautiful, yet ruthless. If you’ve never read this bizarre and winding tale, you might be surprised to find it is nothing like Disney’s Frozen. In Andersen’s story, there are no sisters, no trolls, no talking snowman and no catchy tunes about letting go. The only features the stories share are plucky heroines, reindeer and lots and lots of ice and snow. The Snow Queen can be read as a coming-of-age story, but to me it is also a metaphor for depression.

Andersen, who also knew something about depression, told his tale in seven parts. Most of the action, in stories two through seven, follows the little girl, Gerda, in her search to rescue her friend, Kay, who has been taken by the queen. The first story, however, relates a fable about a demon-made mirror that reflects every beautiful person or thing as ugly and everything ugly looks even worse.  As goblins are flying the mirror to heaven to torment the angels, it shatters sending shards floating through the air. These lodge in the hearts and eyes of unfortunate and unsuspecting souls, causing them to see the world as a bleak and unsightly place. Two splinters find their way to Kay where one settles in his eye and the other in his heart and in this sad and disaffected state, Kay wanders away from home and is carried off to the Snow Queen’s palace of ice.

Reading this fairytale in the midst of the winter doldrums seemed fitting, because it is during this time of year that I am most vulnerable to depression. As the cold days drag on, I find myself discontented. Suddenly, the people I love don’t love me enough in return. My work feels pointless. My interests seem foolish. I struggle to smile or to care and the physical weight of carrying around all of this dissatisfaction makes me almost too tired to get out of bed. But these feelings aren’t new to me and I have learned to recognize when I need to pay extra attention to how I’m feeling and, more importantly, I have learned to know when I need to ask for help.

In the tale, even after months have passed and his family has given him up for dead, Gerda will not accept that Kay is lost. She sets out alone to find him on a journey that will test her strength and her good heart. Before she reaches the palace of the Snow Queen, she will need to make sacrifices and seek help. More than once on her long, strange trip, she loses her shoes and must forge ahead through the snow in her little bare feet.  But Gerda is steadfast and when she finally finds Kay her tears melt the mirror in his heart. And when Kay sees Gerda, his tears wash the sliver from his eye. Upon returning to their homes, Gerda and Kay realize that big changes have happened while they were away, for now they are all grown up and it is summer.

It is helpful for me to imagine depression as the Snow Queen, who waits to take advantage of those times when I am most vulnerable and who freezes my heart and robs me of my will. I recognize that, just as the mirror distorted Kay’s perceptions, depression makes it harder for me to see clearly and I tend to lose sight of what’s important.  But I also take comfort in knowing that I can claim  the traits of Gerda and by emulating her strength and wisdom, I can melt the ice and find my way back home, even if it takes a little help.

In the last few days here in St. Louis, the sun has reappeared and the snow has melted. The temperatures and the birds are proclaiming that spring can’t be far away and I think I’m safe in saying I’ve survived another winter. But even with spring, depression never is completely gone from my life. No one person’s experience of depression is like another’s, but I hope that if you’ve had to confront the Black Dog, this reflection has proven helpful. Happy Almost-Spring and remember to be good to yourself and never be afraid to ask for help.

What The Child Saw

Only a moment before, the Emperor had felt the silken robe, light as a spider’s touch, slide against his skin.  He had heard its rustle as he raised his hand to wave to the oddly quiet crowd.  Even now he hesitated, carefully placing each step to avoid tearing the magnificent scarf that hung from his waist.  But he couldn’t ignore the whispers.  “A child says he has nothing on.”  “It’s true.  Can’t you see?  He has nothing on.”    Was everyone in his empire too dull to see the marvelous garments the weavers had created just for him?  But as the breeze sent chills up his spine and the gooseflesh pimpled his arms, he knew.  His fine clothes were just a fantasy.   He fought the urge to drop his hands over his most delicate parts, straightened his shoulders and avoided looking at his gawking subjects.  He would tough this out.  Keep living the illusion.  But let him hear so much as one snicker, one giggle and heads would roll.  (Inspired by “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen.)

Being photographed is one of my least favorite things.  There is something about the stark reality of a picture of yourself that strips away any pretensions.  By never asking questions like, “does this skirt make me look fat” or “how do you like my hair,” I remain in comfortable ignorance of what I look like in the eyes of others.  That is until someone brings out a camera and starts taking pictures.   Photos of me all the way from grade school until now show the strained smile and tightness around the eyes of someone who is about to get bad news.  You can always tell your most passive aggressive of friends by who’s the quickest to assure you the photograph you hate the most “looks just like you.”  And in the age of social media, the pictures you always hoped would spend their existence forgotten in a box at the bottom of a closet are now on Facebook for all the world to see.  Ah, progress.

Cameras are everywhere.  At a recent wedding as one friend danced in blissful abandon another friend caught every funky moment on her smart phone.  We live in a time where we always have to be ready for our next close up.  Our hair, our skin, our teeth, everything has to be perfect.  Though I try to fight it, there is a little voice in my head telling me that once I attain perfection, I will finally have peace of mind.  When all the chores on my lifetime to-do list are checked off, when I’ve found the right haircut, the right job, the right relationship, I will be able to stop worrying and just live.  Like the Emperor, I’m searching outside for something that will make me happy inside.  By living outside in, instead of inside out, we endeavor to make the world happy with us and miss the opportunity to be happy with ourselves.

Last night, I watched the movie Annie Hall again for the umpteenth time.  One of my favorite scenes comes early in the film when Alvy’s grade school classmates stand beside their desks and reveal the adults they’ll eventually become.  I always laugh the loudest at the little girl with narrow glasses who dispassionately states, “I’m into leather.”  Telescoping the years from the time a child is relatively untouched by life’s illusions to a confession of adult proportions is comic genius, but it also makes me long for the unselfconscious days of childhood.  In the story, it took the open heart and mind of a child to say what everyone else had to be thinking.  When my younger son was very small, he came to me one day and, gazing at me nose-to-nose, he said, “Mom, what does the world look like through grown up eyes?”  If I had been wise that day, I would have said, “First, you tell me what it looks like to you.”