I know you mean well, but please stop telling me that I am a failure. #DayOfLight

I don’t have an excuse for my chronic mental health problems. No history of abuse, no traumatic events, no drug use. I eat healthy food, get daily exercise, attend church regularly, volunteer at my children’s school. I even get weekly adult time with my spouse.

And yet I fall into depression every few months.

I spent a decade of young adulthood trying to get a doctor to actually recognize that I had a problem- circa 1990, if you weren’t cutting yourself or displaying an eating disorder, you weren’t sick enough to get medical attention. I spent five more years trying to find an effective treatment. For about seven marvelous years Celexa helped me respond to life in a normal, healthy, non-self-destructive way. Then, as sometimes happens with mental illness, the medications stopped working. It was gradual. First I was just a little cranky. Then I was unaccountably weepy. Then I started wanting to bang my head against the wall like I used to in high school. Eventually I could not deny that my daily pill was useless and I was once again ill.

While I am looking for a new treatment, I follow all respected medical advice for dealing with mental illness. I do things I used to enjoy, like planting trees and keeping an organic garden. I’m trying to learn to play the guitar. I take deep cleansing breaths whenever the crazy creeps in, and get on my bike for half an hour every day whether I feel like it or not.

I also surround myself with positive people. But if it weren’t for doctors recommending it, I wouldn’t. These positive people keep giving me bad advice. They keep telling me that happiness is a choice. And anyone who has dealt with depression knows it’s not.

We wouldn’t want it to be.

To reduce a person’s inner experience to a single, up-or-down personal decision robs the sensation of happiness of its fundamental utility: that good things should make us feel good.

How can you know if you have found someone you want to spend your life with if they don’t make you feel happy? Why would you bother to seek more suitable employment, if a lack of happiness did not prompt you to it? Stay with the harpy or the schlub, don’t bother getting retrained- blaming your lack of willpower for the fact that you are not happy is easier and less frightening than making a life change.

 How do you even know when you are having fun if doing it doesn’t bring a feeling that you can identify as happiness? Following your bliss is less a life quest than an absurdist mantra if bliss is something you can turn on like a faucet. “Wickedness never was happiness,” says the scripture. But if a person could simply choose to be happy regardless of their moral state, then who would bother to do all the tediously upright and temporally unrewarding work of being a decent person? What is Damnation but a state of never ending unhappiness? Fear not, evil doers- choose to be happy in the face of your eternal torment!  You’ll get used to the heat.

Happiness motivates. It’s like the flip side of pain. Pain exists to tell us that something is wrong and that we should do something about it, quickly. Happiness exists to tell us when something is right. It is a crucial indicator of whether or not we are who and where we are supposed to be. Now I agree there is a significant element of will involved in being happy.  Two different people in the same basic circumstance can decide to react in completely different ways: when surrounded by darkness, you can curse it, or you can light a candle. 

But no number of candles will turn the night into day.

Everyone knows that a person with chronic pain is not necessarily lacking in some aspect of character. But whether or not a person whose brain can’t get the Happy thing going is morally deficient seems to still be in question.  That question is raised every time one of my friends shares what they think is a simple inspirational Facebook post proclaiming that “Happiness is a Choice.”

If happiness is strictly a matter of choice, it is my own fault if I am not happy- I am personally deficient for my lack of happy sensations. Whenever I sit down with a friend and list the things I am doing in an effort to be happy, they agree that I am making the right choices.

But unless they have experienced mental illness themselves, they just can’t wrap their heads around the lie that they are telling me. They chide me for my defensiveness, or chivvy me to “talk with my doctor” (as if I haven’t already). Some go so far as to insist that I can “just pull myself out of it!” (Thank God I already talked to my doctor, who is at least better informed than that.)

Rather than stick around for more Pollyanna pistol-whipping, I usually withdraw from my unwitting antagonist. My social circle keeps shrinking, which is counterproductive when trying to deal with a mental illness, but better than seeking support from people who are not equipped to give it.

From time to time I find people in my situation who are able to frame their friends’ behavior as ignorance rather than deception or douchebaggery. I admire their fortitude.

But it sometimes happens that their Happy friends decide to end their relationship, frustrated with this person who is willfully, obstinately Not Happy- and in spite of all the Happy person’s good advice! Ironically, this leaves the Happy person in a perilous position. Around a quarter of the population will experience mental illness at some point in their lives. So a person who has it all together today and thinks it is because they are just that skilled at choosing happiness is in for a rude awakening if they experience an episode of mental illness.

The facile employment of the “Happiness is a Choice” meme perverts happiness into a virtual cudgel, a tool to blame the victim. Those who find themselves sane and happy can isolate themselves from those who aren’t, reassuring themselves that their pleasant mental state is the result of their own virtue, and that those in misery deserve it. It is a psychological burqa: If only you would cover yourself, you would not be assaulted: If only you would choose to be happy, you would not be miserable. It allows the voluntarily veiled to blind themselves to the reality of the involuntarily vulnerable.

At least, until the vicissitudes of life catch up to them.

“Happiness is a Choice” reduces a complicated interaction of Brain, Body, Spirit, and Will to a light switch. Happiness is a pipe organ, not a plastic whistle. It’s not just on or off. If you mean “Life ain’t perfect, but I am counting my blessings,” then say so. It doesn’t take that much longer to type out. If you mean “I feel fantastic today and I want to take some credit for that,” then go for it. If you want to share it with a pretty picture, you’ll have to add your own, but that’s not so difficult.  And if you mean “I’m sick of listening to you whine! I don’t have those problems, so they can’t be real- shut it already!”- well, then, at least we would all be dealing straight with one another.

I know you want a tidy, happy ending to this story. I do, too. I’m trying a new treatment now, and it’s helping, sometimes. When it is working, if someone throws a little “happiness is a choice” nonsense my way, I can drop and roll and let it pass me by. But I choose not to.  Not allowing people to tell childish, pretty little lies is the best choice I can make to spread a little happiness. Or at least, a little understanding.

I'm Lighting Candles as Fast as I Can, But It Just Keeps Getting Darker.

You've probably noticed I haven't blogged in awhile. You see, although I have been plenty bored this school year, it was not due to an overabundance of time. Acting on the notion that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness (or at least, go ahead and light the candle while cursing under one's breath), I volunteered at the beginning of the school year to help with the gardening at school. The district still mows the lawns and trims the trees, but anything beyond that is basically being left to go to the weeds, as there is not enough money to pay for groundskeeping time. There are several other people who have said they want to help me, but when it comes right down to it, I am the one who shows up.

The Rose garden

Our previous principal was overly fond of roses. He got a grant to have these planted several years ago. I think it is mightily foolish to have prickle bushes on an elementary school campus, but they are here now- and they do bloom nicely, so long as I deadhead the spent blooms every week.

Natives/Butterfly Garden-
but WHY plant roses in the playground area?!

These native plantings don't require much of me other than weekly weeding, and I prune up the limbs on the young trees in an effort to encourage them into a shade-giving shape. Once the trees are mature, the district will (budgets allowing) take over maintenance, and most of the plants underneath will likely need to be removed due to lack of sunlight. But that is a few years away yet. For now, weed and wait.

This planting area outside the office used to hold palms trees, but the district gardening crew removed them because they thought the trees were cracking the pavement. I successfully grew both lettuce and broccoli there until the crew came back through and planted these flowers (amaryllis relative, can't recall the name). I added the pineapple guava shrub in the middle just to thumb my nose at them, and now I water and weed the bed weekly.

The Kindergarten Vegetable Garden
(Say that ten times fast!)

This was part of my older son's Eagle scout project, and it took a few hundred hours of time from me to help him raise the funds for those barrels. We originally wanted to build raised beds, but we couldn't build anything on campus without paying the carpenter's union for a foreman to come out and supervise. However, they didn't object to planters. These barrels are made in Canada from recycled plastic (I tried to find a USA source and simply could not, but I figured North American sourcing was better than shipping from Asia).

Jillian displays the merchandise.

We raised the money to buy them by collecting Capri Sun bags at lunchtime, cleaning them, sewing them into bags, and selling the bags. And when I say "we", I mean mostly "me". I had a few student helpers at lunchtimes, and Ben did come help with the after-school selling. (He was of course in charge of organizing the installation and planting of the garden.) But it is now the job of parents and kids to weed it- and me to water it every week (for obvious reasons, the school has the kind of spigots that require a special tool.)

These are some of the potted trees on campus. Aside from adding pleasant greenery, these often get used as set dressing when there is an event/concert at the school. Several years ago I salvaged five of these from the trash, where the janitor had put them because they died for lack of watering. I took them home and watered them. They came back to life. I brought them back to the school. I convinced the janitor to start watering them every week. Someone repotted them in cedar barrels. Many years later, the pots are rotting out, and the district no longer has the funds for that janitor. When Ben's fundraiser managed to come up with more money than was needed to finish the kindergarten garden, I started using the money to buy new barrels for the trees. And, of course, I water them.

One of several rows of bungalows on campus

My kids' school was built for about 500 students. Expanding the capacity to 1100 has required that a few dozen portable classrooms be added- not cheap, but cheaper than building new schools. To humanize the asphalt-ringed mazes of buildings, some previous PTA members placed pleasant succulents in cedar barrel planters in front of each building. But, as with the trees, the barrels have started to rot.

When a barrel goes bad.

So, when I finished with all the trees that presently needed new digs, I started on the planters. I have retained many of the succulent plants at home for some rest and recuperation- I remember loving to tear apart the leaves on silver dollar/jade plants when I was little, and apparently that hasn't changed with today's kids. In the meantime, I'm trying various other plants. On the row above are amaranth, tomato, squash, chard, artichoke, and strawberries. And of course, I will be watering them over the summer.

Sweet potatoes in a Barrel planter.

With so many bad things happening in our district (all arising from a lack of funds), I am trying to create a silver lining to the accumulating clouds. I have this grandiose notion that if the kids come back to school with a veggie garden already growing, I can positively influence the culture of the school in a healthy living direction. Also, people behave better when they are in well-tended, vegetation-rich environments. Having a clean, attractive campus is a real benefit to student well-being. I am aware of the possibility that summertime vandals will piss in the plantings and kill them all. I can only try.

This squash is happier here than the
same vine in my garden at home.

There are still 20 more cedar barrels that will need replacing in the next year or two. So I gotta keep making and selling the bags. But that's enough for today. Next time: More Food Action.

Been There, Read That

Over the last few years, several people have asked me why I don't write a book about my adventures in urban homesteading. There are two answers to that question. The first is "I tried, but it wasn't long enough to be a book." The second one is "Because someone else already did." Novella Carpenters "Farm City," written about her efforts at urban farming and livestock production in Oakland, CA, was published more than two years ago. I found it hilarious and informative, but far too profane for most of my friends to truly enjoy. Any treatise on Permaculture would tell you everything I have learned and more, but they are usually just that- long, sometimes tediously academic treatises, expecting the reader to slog through pages of plant guilds and the advantages of biodynamic farming, when all they want to know is how to set up a backyard chicken coop.

Then last week I checked out "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Urban Homesteading." Mildly insulting title notwithstanding, it is a comprehensive beginner's guide to increasing one's independence (in the practical sense) without migrating to the countryside. I don't do everything they discuss, and certainly don't do it in the exact manner they  describe. But if you want to move beyond growing summer tomatoes and try something a little more radical (the root word of which  is the latin "radix", meaning "root", amusingly enough), then this is a quick read and a fine place to start your study.

Come Mista Tally Man

It's banana blooming time again. 

I have learned from past experience that this variety (I don't know the name- the tag was long ago lost in the mulch by the rummaging of kids and chickens) produces far more bananas than I can use for cooking. The kids don't find their slippery ripe texture to their liking for fresh eating, so lunchboxing doesn't help much.

Besides, when the 'nanas start filling out, they get so heavy they threaten to tip the tree. So as soon as the plant has produced a few more hands (the "bunches" that you buy in a grocery store are properly termed hands; a bunch is the entire enormous pseudostem full of as many as a hundred bananas) imma gonna cut off what is left of the flower and see if I can cook it. Anybody have a recipe suggestion?

Live and In Person

I saw a bakfiets yesterday. A real, Dutch bakfiets, on the streets of Long Beach by Whaley park.

"But what on God's green earth is a bakfiets?" I hear you cry. Only the coolest euro-hip kid-carrying cargo bike ever! It looks like this.


The one I saw yesterday was carrying a toddler and a baby, and was ridden by a guy named Michael Wolfgang Bauch. I know this because, after stopping him to ask where he got the awesome wheels, he told me that he was a filmmaker. He recently finished a film called "Riding Bikes with the Dutch", which will soon be screening at LACMA. Here's his website:
http://everydaybike.com/

I told him about my Madsen bucketbike (http://www.madsencycles.com/), and he was kind enough to not scoff at my American wheels, and share my enthusiasm for going car-free for short trips. I think it was the high point of my week. 

I didn't Know Birds Could Do That

I've never seen anything like it. A pair of goldfinches (Michaelson assures me that is what they are) wove a nest on the underside of one of our banana tree leaves. I think it incorporates fibers from the leaf itself in order to support the weight.

It gets bounced around by the breezes an awful lot, but hey, maybe birds like that.

I haven't seen the chicks yet, but I can hear them peeping from across the yard when their parents show up with lunch.

Goldfinches aren't supposed to breed in this area, but nobody told this pair. I hope we get to see the chicks when they fledge, and before they fly away. The father has been a real bright spot in the yard. I don't have a photo, but he looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Goldfinch

Spread 'em

I know, it looks like I was trying to make a Transformers birthday theme tree. In reality it is my most recent effort to turn a tree with a relentlessly upright growth habit into a spreading shade tree.

When a tree resists my efforts to prune it into the shape I want, I resort to bending the twig, as it were. Sometimes I tie limbs together, sometimes I bungee cord them to stationary objects. And sometimes I hang things from the branches to weight them down until they conform. K'nex were well suited this time because I needed so many weights, but relatively light ones. Besides, it was easier to pillage the kids' old K'nex bin than drag out a ladder and get down the box of Christmas ornaments. 

Although that would arguably have been prettier.