On Depression: A Letter From Henry James, 1883

(In which the nineteenth-century novelist valiantly attempts to rally the spirits of friend and essayist Grace Norton.)  

According to the recently released compendium Letters of Note:  An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving A Wider Audience (first published within the U.S. earlier this month and sensitively compiled by British blogger Shaun Usher), James was likely still reeling from the passing of both his parents upon his hearing from Norton.  She had contacted the author, searching for direction, having been deeply effected by a similar loss to her family.  Most famously known for 1881's The Portrait of a Lady, James is accredited with infusing stark realism into his many works of narrative fiction, and here he speaks with the clarity and pragmatism that comes from experience.  It is almost eerie how vividly his voice still carries.  I recommend turning your attention to this stirring note of counsel ---if not also to the above publication, a remarkable trove of dispatches to and from historic figures who, through the application of words, manage to enlighten, amuse, astound, enthrall.  - L.S.

Henry James (National Portrait Gallery)

131 Mount Vernon St.,

Boston

July 28th

My dear Grace,

Before the sufferings of others I am always utterly powerless, and the letter you gave me reveals such depths of suffering that I hardly know what to say to you.  This indeed is not my last word---but it must be my first.  You are not isolated, verily, in such states of feeling as this---that is, in the sense that you appear to make all the misery of mankind your own; only I have a terrible sense that you give all and receive nothing---that there is no reciprocity in your sympathy---that you have all the affection of it and none of the returns.  However---I am determined not to speak to you except with the voice of stoicism.

I don't know why we live---the gift of life comes to us from I don't know what source or what purpose; but I believe we can go on living for the reason that (always of course up to a certain point) life is the most valuable thing we know anything about and it is therefore presumptively a great mistake to surrender it while there is any yet left in the cup.  In other words consciousness is an illimitable power, and though at times it may seem to be all consciousness of misery, yet in the way it propagates itself from wave to wave, so that we never cease to feel, though at moments we appear to, try to, pray to, there is something that holds one in one's place, makes it a standpoint in the universe which is probably good not to forsake.  You are right in your consciousness that we are all echoes and reverberations of the same, and you are noble when your interest and pity as to everything that surrounds you, appears to have a sustaining and harmonizing power.  Only don't, I beseech you, generalize too much in these sympathies and tendernesses---remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another's, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own.  Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can.  We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most.  We help each other---even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the efforts of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live.  Sorrow comes in great waves---no one can know that better than you---but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it passes and we remain.  It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or the end.  Don't think, don't feel, any more than you can help, don't conclude or decide---don't do anything but wait.  Everything will pass, and serenity and accepted mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much life, in a word, will remain.  You will do all sorts of things yet, and I will help you.  The only thing is not to melt in the meanwhile.  I insist upon the necessity of a sort of mechanical condensation---so that however fast the horse may run away there will, when he pulls up, be a somewhat agitated but perfectly identical G. N. left in the saddle.  Try not to be ill---that is all; for in that there is a future.  You are marked out for success, and you must not fail.  You have my tenderest affection and all my confidence.

Ever your faithful friend---

Henry James

PERSONAL ASIDE:  My father and I do not communicate much on matters of delicate nor profound concern, yet, just when I had become convinced that my lingering melancholia and obsessive-compulsive patterns were inappreciable to even my most immediate family, he altered me to this text, leaving his copy of Mr. Usher's book open to the letter above.  No stranger to dark moods himself, he reminded me with one modest gesture that he is a sympathetic and kindred spirit.  Lesson being, never underestimate others (or, as James himself admonished, "don't [...] generalize too much").

Whither Must I Wander?

"Home, no longer home to me, whither must I wander?

Hunger my driver, I go where I must."

- Robert Louis Stevenson, Songs of Travel and Other Verses (XVI)

It is a peculiar state of mind when a ninety-calorie granola bar has the power to arbitrate your emotions, to hoist you from hopelessness to its reverse.  Only moments ago I was stewing in my usual depression ---confounded, bitter, made miserable by an inability to answer basic and persistent hunger cues.  Yearning for assistance, I was imagining how much "easier" meeting my body's needs might be if I could have the hand of someone to prod and support me when I ought to refuel, to bring me to the trough (so to speak).  Luckily, this morning a kindly spirit guide saw to me in the last of my dreams.  We were together in a mid-century California chalet, with the energy of other companions rising from a lower floor like the buzz of an active hive.  He was a sort of tidy older gentleman, a mentor presenting in the form of Tim Gunn  --both gentle and forbearing.  Without explanation I understood that he was a protector and gate-keeper.  In that place I was among a cabal of artists and creatives whose ranks I might infiltrate and observe, being accepted for everything that I am --in full, with faults.  From there, borrowing off the power and love of this figure, I found courage, however briefly, to be my own custodian.  And thus, that granola bar was unwrapped and consumed.  And I didn't pay it much mind.

It has become necessary for me to reference such abstractions because I do not find motivation to improve in my immediate surroundings.  Although occasionally inspired to puzzle together some sort of collage, I am not satisfying a deeper path or career trajectory here in the rural Maine of my parent's homestead.  When not completing chores or obsessive-compulsive assignments, some days I do little more than down bottle after bottle of iced tea and stare out a window.  I fall back on the notion that I "can't" manage significant improvement outside a specialized clinic, that I require meals and/or snacks prescribed and, on some occasions, firmly administered.  It's at these moments that I try to summon my logical self, addressing my case as a rational adult.  I am an uninsured, underfunded melancholic of weak body and constitution.  On the surface, I am in functioning health.  Labs would easily hint at my compromised organs, bones, and mineral count, but too often general practitioners don't know or understand what to look for.  While I know well enough that my full anatomy is being taxed, the gradual decline of a system subjected to starvation is not seen to merit emergency care.  With once-weekly therapy I have taken moderate steps towards blunting my illness:  weight-wise, the 1 1/2 pounds sacrificed to Manhattan have been recovered and improved upon; behaviorally, exercise demands remain persistent, but not outrageous.  What's more, I recently observed minor bleeding in my (ahem) "lady parts" --menstruation being something I have experienced no more than the fingers on two hands.  Given that such discharge is considered a sign of health, those I have informed of it have assumed I am doing better.  And yet, I lack for T&A and my heart feels tight and burdened.  Simply put, my body is exhausted, with sleep a reliable recess from the stress it shoulders.  The days feel barely surmountable; within them I flounder, moored to the same sets of holy parameters.  I am in a vaguely promising state of mind, willing to be cooperative if I can just get more of a nudge when I stall.  On rare occasions I have read other people's recovery blogs and, in comparison, I don't find myself "as compromised" or severely enveloped in disordered thinking.  (I do not answer in the affirmative to the litany of questions primarily used when evaluating anorexics.  For instance, I understand food to be a powerful and important medicine and do not often judge others on their proportions, unless grossly exaggerated, as any person might.  Furthermore, I am aware that I look and feel remarkably improved with some padding for my sharp edges, which are close to surface-level.  True, there exists a ceiling for the number of pounds I am willing to acquire, but at least I am aiming for something.)  And while I will cop to visions of suicide, such thinking has been a part of my life for nearly twenty years.  In daydreams, I draft morbid visions:  like Little Jack Horner pulling plums, my eyeballs, plucked, come uncupped from their skull.  Without these glossy corks, a wailing, nettled soul rides the air, dispersing like a flour cloud, caking the dingy surfaces that surround.  With these sorts of musings, my mind snaps back, and I chide myself for being so self-indulgent.  I know that I "owe" it to my father not to embarrass or taint the family with the notoriety and general creepiness of a body abandoned.  

I fly back to picturing the benefits of hospital care, a reoccurring reverie since my early teens, when I lost ten or fifteen pounds just after graduating grammar school.  That July I was put on bed rest and given a private room at a local medical center for a dozen days, having become devoted to a forty-five minute workout on my parent's NordicTrak® Classic Pro Skiier and terrified of any food with "fat".  In a rather secluded pediatric wing I was delicately and tenderly treated by medical personnel.  To my detriment, I have harbored a warped fondness for the notion of being "taken-in" --of being nursed towards better health.  My memory of what occurred has been pulled back and distorted, a mere refraction of light spied at the end of a backwards-facing periscope.  I have forgotten the many seriously unpleasant requisites that accompanied this, if not all, institutional treatment approaches for an eating disorder.  The harsh, unfortunate truth:  convalescent sets-ups are awkward, expensive, and often psychologically injurious.  Should a person be given some sort of recovery bed in a ward of the state, non-private quarters are assigned, with bathroom monitoring and supervised meals selected mainly without patient input.  Exercise, it goes without saying, would be verboten.  Educational sessions incorporating preventative strategies and group therapy constitute your daytime schedule, and you are asked again and again to map-out the history of how your problems arose.  Basic freedoms are traded for the privilege of simply, surely surrendering to one prominent biological demand-- refeeding with true earnestness.  In psychiatric institutions you are committed to recovery because, well, you are committed.  It is painful and humbling, and difficult for everyone:  the staff escorts you like a skittish horse, his blinker hood buckled tight.  Made blind at morning weigh-ins, those signed-in are expected to cooperate without interfering with THE PROGRAM.  Of course, you can't just surrender your mental fixations at check-in, and there is chafing, no matter how genuine your desire for repair.  Embracing all tenets around which a staff may rally is especially difficult should you feel moderately protective of your established ways, however "incorrect" or supposedly evil.  It is not unusual for those afflicted to think of their mental disorder as a sort of compadre --equally revered and resented-- assigning it a name, cleverly derived and/or abbreviated.  (On the internet, scores of discussion groups, even Pinterest boards, have been devoted to Ana and her ilk.  Seen as BFFs to some, "frenemies" to others, Ed, Mia, Cat, & Olive have come to constitute a notorious crew.)  Yes, the disease roosts inside of us:  a stillborn twin; we become riled and defensive at the thought of her removal.  There's no escaping ingrained neuroses, and acquired knowledge of calorie exchanges can haunt you long after mealtime.   Stress is provoked not only by the food, but just as often by the histrionics of those also needing "special handling".  You are both the guinea pig and the researcher, testing the limits of what your body can absorb and mind endure under new and foreign forms of duress.  Despite all this, I would have months, if not years ago volunteered myself to the Portland program --the sole option covered by Maine Medicaid-- if it weren't for the firm disapproval of my parents, who want to see me prove that I can incorporate corrected dietary guidelines into everyday practice, and reject the strict OCD routines/dieting hang-ups so vigorously espoused for most of my lifetime.  There is also the issue of having been in this program previously (on more than one occasion) when it was a full-on inpatient affair.  Ten years later, one is expected to afford housing in the vicinity of the hospital, returning Monday through Friday for part-time treatment.  In 2004, shell-shocked and riled by the seeming backwardness modeled at one clinic near Philadelphia, I reluctantly submitted to the New England Eating Disorders center out of Mercy Hospital.  Cordial as an individual, I wasn't a model participant.  I spitefully remonstrated against their rules by stealthily sneaking pieces of food off my tray or artificially loading myself down at weigh-ins.  It left me anxious and ashamed, but at the time I literally couldn't help myself.  This leaves me to fear the residual reprimand of its serious (albeit good-humored) task force, a largely unmodified company of specialists.  Aside from a few key nurses, the staff had trouble seeing me beyond the unflattering shell of my affliction.  Even though I went back in 2006 with a much improved and more cooperative demeanor, I feel as if they would still reference our initial falling out.  Suffice it to say, I would much prefer to enter a facility in which I don't carry a history upon arrival.  

Day in and day out I mull over wanting to be away, to have an existence somewhere else --largely New York or L.A.  As I've said, my health creeps and creeps in a positive direction, but at a glacial pace.  If I truly want to gain independence I need to make myself sturdier, but with most steps forward I take one back.  Shuffling along, I extend this process needlessly.  I can maintain a weight when I get to it, but building-up pounds takes a very special effort.  When I consider the cons of hospital treatment I become more assured of myself and my mission.  But my future is an inscrutable dangling secret; beyond a college diploma and growing cache of commercially-sound artworks, as a singleton, I've made few provisions.  Like Blanche DuBois, I have "always depended on the kindness of strangers."  I am not ashamed of charitable assistance, at least if it is opportunity-based and not of great financial strain.  Might I find some sort of real-life benefactor --a counterpart to that visiting Tim Gunn apparition of my waking hours?  I seek to make way in an urban environment and in a creative field where I might leave permanent impact.  I am sustained by a grand yearning to change a corner of our culture (hopefully, for the better).  I have tried to capitalize on this period of recovery by developing this blog, along with bolstering activities I enjoy like painting, photography, and maintaining correspondence with online connections.  (I attempt to take a cue from Winston Churchill, who famously said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste.")  If I want to move the world more than a flaccid falling leaf, I need to charge ahead.  But where should I do the charging?  Whither Must I Wander?

Twenty Image Portfolio Sample

Maine Media Workshops Scholarship Application

For Consideration:  Photography, Paintings, and Collages by Lorena Stackpole

For further representation of my sensibilities, please see the December entry of this blog.

Spring Rises, Birds Fall

"I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself."

- D. H. Lawrence, Self Pity

No Foolin'

When The Apple takes a bite out of you:
This month I lost weight to New York's mean streets.*
(*but I'm rebounding)

Forgive my absence from these pages these last two weeks, but my dance card has been circulating in a larger arena than is the norm, with many names scribbled within its limited slots.  I am collecting myself after an all-too-fleeting sojourn in New York City that had me questioning my commitment to the rural existence I begrudgingly adopted in 2010 to reduce stress on my body and wallet.  For sixteen days beginning in mid-March I traversed the city, catering to a long list of appointments with friends and coworkers alike.  Some of these were associates from my days at NYU, while others were more recently-acquired connections --including two Facebook pen-pals I had never spoken with in person.  When not exploring the less commercial shops and streets I acted as paid custodian-caretaker to an 8th Street residence off Washington Square Park and its two feline charges, Chucho and Puya.  I had come to know Jack, their owner and area vocal coach/choral director, through private lessons in my Junior year of schooling.  In those days these spritely cats were mere juveniles, and I have to marvel at their well-preserved spirit and good health.  I was fortunate to not loose as much weight as when I spent a similar period one year ago in L.A., as I was able to eat my customary large dinner in the safe sanctuary of a warm, conveniently located and comfortable abode.  While I did not permit myself much, if anything, to eat during my full and active daytime program, Jack's stipend was enough that I could purchase reasonable portions of the foods I enjoy (winter squash, cottage cheese, romaine lettuce, vegetarian burger patties, air-popped popcorn with nutritional yeast and "lite" butter topping) as well as drinks such as Lipton's Pure Leaf™ Iced Tea, Evian water, and the odd can or two of Diet Coke.  I admittedly wasted a ripe opportunity to experiment with all manner of cuisine, given that anything and everything is available within the five boroughs proudly serving the NYC scene, but I at least managed to sustain myself in a wholly different territory to what know in Maine.  Lacking a scale, I was unable to perform my morning weight-check, a ritual gladly waived.  It is a painful measure, one I resent and fear, as it dictates how much I consume in consequence.  A high reading (or what I consider so) will influence the degree of guilt with which I take in calories, even if my body's level of hunger points to contrary desires.  I would like to forgo the regular use of one, even now that I again have access to such a gauge (a digital model tucked discreetly bedside).  It is a machine that possesses unnecessary influence over my mood and can adversely stymie positive change or development, as my internal judge does not respond well to day-to-day fluctuations, whether down or up.  If I am to pursue new pounds before making California a reality, the anguish accompanying their arrival will almost surely be magnified when seen, straightforward and unambiguous, on its unfeeling screen.  Conversely, my own eyes know now to recognize the benefits of added flesh upon an emaciated frame, and are therefore more likely to receive changes with joyful relief, rather than critical derision.  My obsessive-compulsive patterns mustn't be the cat's-paw to a lifetime of arrested dreams and good intentions.  I will not be their tool, nor remain another year fortune's fool and victim.

No, I didn't try a slice of Ray's pizza or a bagel from Katz's Deli, but I did allow myself $3 hot pretzel.

Lá Fheile Pádraig: Fries, Fromage, and Frolicsome Floozies

"This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." -- Sigmund Freud (concerning the Irish)

Nothing says Saint Patrick's Day quite like a robust spread of potatoes, cheese, and other indulgences -- most notably, a spunky red-haired dame with her legs in the air.  I am including images of my latest creative distraction, a hand-cut collage mounted upon a gentle sunset of pink and gray.  Note the frosted donut, an homage to the squads of Irish policemen rounding the beat tonight, trolling for pickled goons and bleary-eyed hooligans at the close of this memorably merciless winter.

Above:  collage of paper pasted on spray-painted 16" x 20" canvas with with pink and gold striped edges and Modge Podge glaze, (full view). 

"Fat Tuesday"

Closing Carnaval, or shrovetide, with an all-American patio party -- seen below in Charbroiled Charms.  On Ash Wednesday, revelers wake to bellyaches and the call of Lent.  This practice of feasting before a period of restriction, as observed by more devout Christians, is certainly reminiscent of a textbook eating disorder.  But for now, we watch as Mardi Gras showers us in pancakes, patties, and pink Sno-Balls™ fresh from their cellophane glove.  Pig-out, my friends -- for tomorrow you starve.*

11" x 14" mixed media collage with glaze, February 2014

*please don't

In lieu of cake I'll be eating my words

Over the course of precisely one year, I have issued scores of pronouncements pertaining to ways in which I might bridle my disordered habits.  Established on March 1, 2013 during a brief stint in Los Angeles, this series of posts --now numbering fifty-eight-- was seen as a vehicle for chronicling weight restoration after half a lifetime of obsessive-compulsive exercise and food restriction.  To punctuate twelve months of entries I offer a thumbnail account of my preluding history with hospitalization.  As a step towards full disclosure, of removing remaining artifice, I believe readers are owed this information.

Although I have followed anorexic instincts for twenty-odd years, it has only been for the last ten that I have been in a certifiably low BMI range.  True, I was first brought to a medical center, with need for physical convalescence, at age thirteen, but with my doctor's persuasion and influence I managed to reach a level of seemingly normal health.  I would go on to be nutritionally starved, yet on the ripe side of slender, through high school and college, until academic pressures and complications from oral surgery disastrously collided in the second half of 2003.  In the decade that followed I have never kept myself very long at a level where I might comfortably don a bathing suit or sleeveless shirt, for fear of being branded "outrageously/irresponsibly thin".  (Yes, strangers have berated and shunned me when in lighter clothing.)  By the summer of 2009 I was truly yearning to inhabit a cosmetically-pleasing posture, but after moving back in with my parents it became clear any stores of resolve would need compensation from experienced medical authorities.  I returned to the guidance of a friendly nutritionist and, by 2011, had also secured an agreeable and supportive therapist, not to mention an equally sympathetic MD.  But on the home front my parents were not comfortable enforcing the doctors' edicts, and as an adult it was embarrassing to plead for stricter boundaries.  With limited options, in January 2011 I committed myself to a local psychiatric center for addicts and suicidals, and, although I did not put on pounds, I left with an improved approach to eating in which I divided my calories between two meals instead of one large supper.  Between 2004 and 2006 I had been in better-equipped clinics, but return enrollment in these options became tricky after leaving my early twenties and the umbrella of family insurance.  If the last year has taught me anything, it is that overcoming a debilitating, self-sustained malady is especially difficult without at least a few weeks of residential reconditioning within an appropriately attuned correctional center.  Like any motor, my mind requires recalibration.  It would almost certainly benefit my recovery to backtrack and revisit previous essays, approaching various plans and proclamations as if with a stranger's eye.  At the very least, I should freely take and consume my own advice.  It's not as if the goal is beyond human ability.  As I've said before, even the youngest of creatures involuntarily recognizes the goodness of mother's milk.  Rather, it is a quotidian function, so deceptively simple...

So close to this wish -- I can almost "taste" it.

March MMXIII:
Selfie with retro specs sourced from So. Cal

February MMXIV:
Same cashmere turban and scarf, seen in mirror

On Safari (or Firefox, Opera, Explorer, Chrome)

Primping, Pimping, Pushing, Preening 

Amid the Modern Panoply

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Engraving (1558): The Seven Vices -- "Pride"

Promotion of one's person, whether for professional or private advantage, has always struck me as bullish, tacky, even a tad desperate.  However, unless armed with a dedicated manager/spokesman in your corner, or furnished with a supportive cloth of friends to rally as fans, campaigning is a necessary component of selling your "brand".  With gaining potency and effectiveness, the internet makes it entirely possible to achieve a respectable level of awareness in your pursued field without wandering terribly far into the sticky morass of direct human contact.  Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube, Funny or Die, HelloGiggles, hitRECord, Tumblr, Blogger, Squarespace, OkCupid, Match.com, Zoosk, eHarmony, Linked In, IMDB, ActorsAccess, Backstage, Wix, eBay, Etsy -- together these represent a partial spectrum of sites available for the purpose of establishing an online identity, all at minimal impact to your checkbook.  It is the time commitment required that is the sorest expense (besides, you know, actually having to work towards an identity or product that then might be commodified).  Building yourself up and taking ownership of what you represent helps distinguish your body (of work or otherwise) from the ether.  If you don't demonstrate and champion your gifts, who will?  Vanity is not necessarily at play, but rather confidence.  (The alternative might be that you are merely tolerated as an obligatory connection, granting you a few dozen followers on social media from a stale pool of kin and colleagues.  Generally speaking, that is not enough of a network to support whatever you're hoping to circulate.)  Simply put, positive awareness is established through concerted effort.  You need to actively mold your brand.  Otherwise, eyes might stumble upon your story before you are prepared to receive them, following a headline you had no part in writing.  Fame can easily come to those who are the brunt of a joke, especially in the virtual community.  Yes, a person can bounce back from fortuitous media attention to reclaim the part of him or herself that was hijacked, but again, this requires a calculated response.  There's nothing wrong with leveraging and manipulating the power you've been handed -- and there is power in every name, recognizable or not.  (Just think of the costs related to the acquisition of domain and host titles, especially those connected to a person or thing with a strong Q score.)  Given the chance, only a handful of people would not choose to parlay an awkward predicament in the limelight towards something more, even if those who follow can be acerbic gawkers.  Yes, for every William Hung or Chris "Leave Britney Alone!" Crocker a modern sideshow attraction seeks restored anonymity.  But even the legendary Star Wars Kid eventually learned to "seize the reigns", deflecting a massive audience of mockers towards anti-bullying endorsements.  Whether this is solid clout is questionable, but then again, why do so many D-List veterans of long-passed reality shows keep popping-up like bad pennies, often as Talking Head commentators and authorities?  Simply put, unless you are the property of a company that harbors your name under its umbrella, or are puppeted by a "stage mom", you need to have a hand in steering any traffic that comes your way.  Because the 21st century world is a wild, unpredictable kingdom, and there are predators amidst the chaparral.  You are always going to be your strongest advocate.  Despite a harness, the horse is always stronger than the rider; similarly, a dog has significant control over the kind and quality of his run, even leashed.

Who's in charge?  The unmistakeable Gil Elvgren, Help Wanted (1939)

Does this verge into egomania?  Not necessarily.  If you are an artist, promotion is a necessary division of your job --unless you are the rare bird contented to father materials without concern for their interpretation, application, usage, and/or commercial reception.   I, personally, would find it hard to trust others not to bungle my legacy, preferring to flex any influence I might have over what I manage to produce before my ultimate demise.  Stopping short at snapping "selfies" (clichéd, artless masturbation) I am not above keeping a well-rounded arsenal of photos to have at one's judicious disposal.  True, I am guilty of posting a number of pictures of myself on Myspace and Facebook, but that was in the infancy of my life online, when I still needed to define myself --especially with burgeoning friendships.  Today, I am more selective with where my face is plastered.  Headshots, although corny, are the universally-traded 8" x 10" I.D.'s of modeling and acting circles; they are levied, inspected, juxtaposed, and replaced as earnestly as the business cards of Patrick Batemen's Wall Street cronies.  Thankfully, for non-entertainers, glossy studio smiles are not common currency and do not require regular distribution and refreshment.  Even so, nearly everyone at some point needs a quality likeness to share, and cameras just happen to be the default, trusty instrument of our age.  What they capture and represent can be exceedingly valuable, and not just for the First Families of basic cable.  Colleges and employers will often request an image of the applicant, and we all know these are deal-breakers for dating profiles.  I've had to take my father's publicity still (for his book's back cover and related press releases); I only just shot portraits of my grandmother for similar reasons.  The clipped pace at which most computer and smartphone users troll online belies an inborn tendency for making superficial, cursory judgements.  Entire generations have learned to be discerning of the clean or crowded fields stacked like playing cards on their glowing browsers.  How one's character --one's "essence"-- is seen in the grand scheme (i.e. when sorted by a search engine) may very well be the 2014 equivalent to having one's echelon researched and defined, all within seconds and not necessarily for honorable purposes.  You can never be sure what a viewer will choose to fixate on and what he will pass over.  But you can have some sway in the quality and number of materials being uploaded and channelled.  Dignity is rooted in discretion, and mystery trumps ubiquity.

Minding the shadows:  it's wise to limit your exposure, 
especially online.  (Image:  The Estate of Greta Garbo)

With this entry I am attempting to work through the shame and awkwardness of standing on the occasional soapbox -- not so much for sermonizing, but for drawing an audience to my meager achievements.  I grew under the influence of a penitent, self-flaggelating father who placed enormous emphasis on not being "conceited"; subsequently, I have for many years wrestled with how one can share personal and professional triumphs without being perceived an obnoxious braggard.  (Clearly, at some vulnerable age I came to assume the Bible's position regarding Deadly Sins, or at least so far as vanity and pride are implicated.  My thoughts on gluttony require more rigorous analysis and therefore shall be shelved for future discussion.)  It didn't help matters when, one week ago, I came across the following missive (with minor edits), posted to Facebook, or "FB", by my half-brother, a singer-songwriter Los Angeleno with a remarkable knack for commanding tunes to his Les Paul:

I was recently informed by a friend that sometimes I appear as a narcissist, and that FB is merely a silly form of entertainment.  I would like to explain that if I talk about myself [it is because I] am a bartender who is striving for a better way to live [by creating] my own business!  It's just that this business happens to be my band!  And FB is one of my tools to promote that business, so my apologies to anyone who is annoyed by my posts.  However, I will use any means necessary to create a better life for myself, and the ones I love.  [I am] working to become a world-renowned recording artist and performer, and I refuse to apologize for that.  So if my posts annoy you in any way, feel free to block me, un-friend me, or just disappear.  I'm giving 110% to bring my dreams into reality and don't need assistance from so-called 'friends' who like to make me look arrogant in a public forum where I'm just trying to share my art.  So with all due respect, f**k off and good luck with your junior high mentality -- I know who I am, and a peacock I am not.

Simply put, I cannot help but entertain the fear that this blog is an indication of unhealthy self-inflation, that in these writings I ruminate too intently and too often on myself and not peripheral matters.  It somewhat relieves my misgivings to think that personal concerns are intrinsic to the mission of Careful What You Wish, and that with this material I might furnish subscribers with a clearer grasp of the particular strains of mental disorders with which I can claim experience, applying what they learn to their own encounters.  Also, it has been brought to my attention that readers gravitate to sites with specific agendas; as I am not a celebrated personality I cannot expect the world to stand still for just any fleeting fancy and should stick to a definable, less arbitrary field.  (If the opposite were true, my Twitter account would surely serve more purpose.)  But I do not want the inwardly-directed orientation of this narrative to be confused with self-love, even though it would probably benefit more of us to pat our own backs when the right has been earned.

The (Google) Glass Menagerie

And with that dallying preamble I now introduce the central reasoning behind today's reflections on self-promotion.  At the urging of an uncle, in mid-January I scanned the list of open competitions on Artweek's "call for submission" page and promptly entered my work into two.  One was more prestigious and would help promote four new and promising voices via the Culturehall homepage and newsletter, reportedly received by professionals in the upwards of thousands.  For this I was rejected, having incorporated the two or three pages from this blog on which paintings and the like have been amassed.  The second, I am guessing, was decided by a less discerning body of jurors, as three of my photographs were chosen for the show.  This collection, presented online by ArtisTTable, is themed "IN AND OUT OF THE ZOO", and has placed my digital close-ups of a dead finch and robin on display along the bottom right side of Gallery One.  Needless to say, I did not win any special recognition or prize, other than to be included.  The curator was remarkably upbeat and encouraging; I did not expect to be so positively received after being given "the brush" from Culturehall's administrators.  I am thrilled to see that some of my photographs are now on a legitimate platform, especially as they are among the few non-paintings displayed in said showcase.  Its illustrations range in quality and vision, with an array of craftsmen from not only the USA, but also Israel and Europe.  The experience as a whole emboldens me to not downplay or neglect my use of a camera, even if I'm playing in a bush league division.

Stunts of the Trained & Collared

(In which the author begs the query, "Am I lower than an animal?")

FAMILIAR TRIGGERS, LOYAL RESPONSES:
COMPONENTS OF EARLY CONDITIONING, BOTH FORGOTTEN AND UPHELD

The magnitude and impact of my mind's compulsive calls depends on their humor at the given hour.  As previously explained, these internal voices --those regularly lobbing their little assignments-- derive power from deep-seated fears.  My response --whether to obey the actions they suggest, the split-second resuscitation of mostly familiar ticks-- is ruled by levels of serotonin, an anxiety-reducing chemical sourced within not only the brain, but several systems of the body including the gastrointestinal tract.  While this well-known neurotransmitter can be boosted using pharmacologic intervention (100 mg clomipramine in my case), a more reliable and rather obvious solution is to vigorously fuel oneself with the food-based nutrients thought to reverse its deficiency.  After all, you are what you eat.  

When facing chemical imbalances, pills are sorry band-aids --slapdash and requiring regular turnover.  True healing, I believe with resolute confidence, can be achieved by correcting not only one's diet, but also one's perception of and relationship to wounds of the past.  This blog serves to provide a sturdy board upon which I might dissect and catalog these long-festering lesions, leaving records of said autopsy for students of similar injury.  As declared outright in the title heading framing these pages, I am taking measures to "mend", processing memories and present-day trials in public, with the literal and figurative screen of my computer.  Progress with moving forward has been reliably thwarted by the fact that my problems have been with me since my formative years.  Most new or unfamiliar behavioral cues emanating from my twin disorders can be shrugged-off and dismissed, but others are long-ingrained and receive no protestation.  Most exercise commitments were generated before I can even remember, devised as a means of thwarting weight gain by a desperate, callow, searching psyche fixated on a culture witnessing expanding waistbands and the early-'90s fad remedies espoused by its media.  My daily "obligations" have mutated over a lifetime; I can summon the memory of some rituals that have receded completely.  I remember having to complete a certain count of sit-ups, push-ups, kneeling lunges, stair ascensions, or other such physical repetitions before, say, navigating through our home merely to "proceed with the day".  These were the less inconvenient measures, performed with varying degrees of discretion.  Others, such as extended "power walks" or sessions on an elliptical machine, stationary bicycle, treadmill, etc. have existed as actual schedule commitments:  premeditated, time-consuming obligations, not always unpleasant but also not exactly welcomed.  Most moonlight as anorexic behaviors, but others on occasion have emerged without a clear or logical relationship to burning calories.  My mother was chiefly introduced to my disorder when I refused at age eight to leave for school until I had kissed every one of the stuffed plush toys hanging in a bedroom wall hammock.  In those days I would position a toothbrush or rat-tailed comb on a countertop so that its "head" (the area with teeth/bristles) would be on top with the thin handle below, to indicate a "big head" and "skinny body".  I also struggled with wearing yellow or pink underwear from the Hanes™ variety pack because those colors connoted lard and pigs, respectably.  (It does not take a sophisticated sleuth to detect their common denominator.)  Whether anyone ever realized such habits were being indulged is unlikely; I've only in the last few years shared those retained in memory.  These incidents I volunteer in conversation because any embarrassment they might arouse is eased by a sort of "statute of limitations".  Having been the concerns of my Child Self I can look at them with greater objectivity and also less ownership.  Current examples of OCD-related routines are less comfortably provided because their appraisal feels like an attack on who I am and where I find myself today.

GINGERLY MOVING THE BAR

One week ago, facing the standard laundry list of pre-meal obligations and ritual protocol, my will buckled from the mounting pressure to incorporate the minimum standard of roughly one hundred minutes speed-walking into the day.  (I wouldn't normally consider this terribly arduous, but when a grown woman is chasing eighty pounds, her legs eventually make an appeal for downtime, "no strings attached".  Furthermore, by noon my hunger cues generally breach, without the need to be stoked.)  Surely, engaging in basic acts of living should not include prerequisites -- why must I have to exhaust physical and emotional reserves only to "earn" the right to meager morsels?  Why should food, so readily in supply and accessible within Western culture, be an exotic privilege?  I am inexpressibly exasperated moving as a tired, trained creature, jumping and contorting myself through umpteen hoops, pausing for just enough fuel to pivot and perform the same antics again.  As an additional indignity, the scale of these painful efforts is ultimately recognized and appreciated by myself alone.  I am reminded of John Merrick's plea to his assailants in 1980's The Elephant Man:  "I am not an elephant!  I am not an animal!  I am a human being!  I am a man!"  Something is terribly amiss when, between my cat and I, she receives twice her master's meal allotments.  When might I, too, observe the elemental pleasures of a working body?  Am I not due what even the basest of lifeforms universally receive?  Am I not amongst the ranks of Man?  Or have I been tucked amidst Lucifer's enlisted?  Indeed, my spoon bears not an imprint from Tiffany or Waterford, but instead carries the markings of Satan's own.

Frontispiece of Nero The Circus Lion:  His Many Adventures (1919) 
Copy by Richard Barnun.  Illustrations:  Walter S. Rogers

Riled by this pother of entreaties, with the rollover of months again staging their turn, I made yet another attempt at normalizing my seriously-defective daily cycle.  With willpower shyly reinforced, for the last eight days I have talked-down my disorders, negotiating.  I subsequently committed to only enough exercise that light rounds might be taken within the town, with a rare half-hour, in bad weather or at night, on the stationary bicycle.  I have come to conclude that I am incapable of swearing-off such stirrings outright -- I need to relieve the "itch" to actively employ my legs.  Having done so, I house much less irritability, self-loathing, disquietude.  In general, my fitness routines have been reduced (for now) by about 40-50%, leaving me with more space to pursue art and earlier sittings for lunch and dinner.  What's more, I have made a firmer commitment to administering an organic multivitamin with medication mid-morning.  After these vital changes came another big "win" for my digestive health:  the elimination ("soyonara!") of soy milk.  As far back as I can recall, this stuff has left me tremendously bloated, in concert with nausea and agitated bowels.  These conditions were only worsened by the nature of how I was preparing it:  1/2 cup chocolate Soy Slender® to 1/4 cup unsweetened Almond Breeze®, heated, with salt to taste.  Certainly, adding sodium (to bring-out the cocoa flavor) was contributing to the gastrointestinal trauma that was persisting four or more hours post-consumption of the mixture.  Because I was also using it to "cut" the blandness of chocolate Orgain®, this past week I haven't been drinking that product either.  Instead, I have reacquainted myself to the gift of yoghurt, as well as indulging a craving for Rice Crispies® (as paired with my old friend banana).  Admittedly, what I have allowed is at least three to four hundred calories less than the amount I should be prescribing, but it would seem my metabolism is so royally f**ed at this point that I gain weight at the mere smell of food.  (I have restored the last pound-and-a-half that had fallen victim to holiday stress and restriction; with some sound self-coaching I have accepted that this now-familiar number is to be embraced as an inevitable stepping stone, with additional adjustments inevitably in store.)  Now the mystery remains, why did my weight spike when I removed the one-two punch of soy milk and Orgain®?*  Could I have been really burning-off so much of my reserves in my activities, or was it that my body wasn't really absorbing much nutrition from what I had become accustomed to for my late-afternoon repast?  Scores of studies argue that soy, like corn, is an insubstantial, if not genetically-modifed crop, nutritionally vacant unless fermented whole.  Said "milk" is the liquid residue of the bean, and if it is not made fresh from that source it is likely derived from soy protein or soy isolate-- in other words, highly processed  (Even Dr. Oz warns against these versions.)  All I know is I was more prone to diarrhea with it in my system, and that, simply put, is an anorexic's crutch --her means, with exercise, of purging.  Given its appetite-suppressing qualities, salted soy milk certainly is a tool for thwarting weight gain -- whether that is an advantage hinges on what side of the battlefield you're approaching from.

*ADDENDUM (on the tail of a four day interim):  After seeing its readings take an unusual climb, it was determined that the base of my scale was not solidly positioned on the floor and was thus issuing its digital pronouncements on a foundation that was literally uncertain ground.  After moving the machine so that its feet were flush on the same floorboard, the number immediately returned to its previous flatline.  This is not to say my current standing is low, or at least lower, than what it had been before ditching soy milk.  It is the same, which makes sense when considering that said action cut calories from my meal plan but was balanced-out by a simultaneous decision to reduce exercise.  Measures where followed to trade soy milk for Almond Breeze® and/or a 6 oz. yoghurt cup along with continuing my regimen of one serving Orgain®.  All considered, there shouldn't be a gaping whole on the food front --or at least more than there had been before this switch-over-- and sessions spent walking or on the anchored pedal bike have not been so dramatically scaled-back as to cause disruption of my steady equilibrium.  What needs to be seen herein:  commitment to the Orgain® supplement and the restoration of an accompanying 200-250 calories with lunch, without falling back into formal work-outs.  To increase odds of lasting weight improvement this is a minimum need, as my body's hunger is less easily ignored without the discomfort of "soy-bloat".  I must be firm with myself, I must maintain the designated bearings:  at my sister's recommendation, I will be more aggressively applying methods of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy under the supervision of weekly council --provided, per usual, by Jennifer M. Batterman, clinical psychologist.  Stay tuned -- this unmoored vessel is leaning into bucking, irascible seas.