The times I have been deeply depressed have shaped who I am.... I don't view myself as sick or ill, yet it can be so easy for me to slip into dualistic thinking where I think of my inspiration as "good" because it allows me to function more easily in this crazy world we live in and helps me feel connected to something bigger and deeper, and then judge my wretchedness as "bad" because it can be so painful when I loose my vision of that connection.

I've been feeling a bit thread-handed myself, the kind of threads that are getting dirty from being held so tightly in my sweaty hands and starting to slip out of my grasp. Some of the threads I'm holding the tightest are the Mad activism I do and loved ones that are asking for my help and support. Some times I remember how grateful I am to have so many precious threads to hold on to in this life, because they form a net that keeps me here. Sometimes my hands get crampy and sore and I feel my grip slipping whether I want it to or not.

For me, going to Walden/coming home to myself is not so easy a thing as returning from a red visit. If it is the slow and difficult trick of living and finding it where I am, where am I if not in my body? It's a good place to start.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, My partner's grandfather died the last day of our visit here, after she said goodbye to him. He was ready to go after almost a year of fighting lung cancer, had said his goodbyes and put his affairs in order, and was not happy that things were dragging on, so as far as we mere mortals around him could tell, that seemed good.

I feel dried up and exposed, like this amazing tree I took a photo of on the beach in Yahats, OR. Almost half of its roots, worn smooth and gray-white (like almost everything left long enough in the elements), were exposed where the bank had been washed away in a big storm. It was December, near my 30th birthday, and as my eyes followed the trunk I marveled at this trees tenacity and will to live, the courage it takes to grow fragile leaves when whole sections of what once rooted it to the ground hung dead in the air above bedrock overgrown with lichen.