The Mouths Of Babes

I feel like we've all heard the story: the precocious child lacking a filter by virtue of being under 5, the humiliated parent standing in a circle of judgement/ridicule/disdain in some public place. These stories are told in the back of parenting magazines and they sound so cliche they've almost lost their punch. Until it happens to you, and then suddenly it's a punch in the groin. You feel that punch in the groin of your brain.

Nico is starting to pay a lot more attention to other people these days. He is interested in their clothes and hair and logos and bags and canes and faces and sizes and pretty much anything that could be remotely considered a distinguishing feature. His nearest and dearest are not exempt from his sometimes blistering scrutiny. Our features and fashion choices meet with approval ("Mommy, I like your hair. I'm so proud of you!"), or his disapproval ("Mommy, take off your belt. It's sthilly.") He drew me up to his bedroom with disconsolate screams earlier this week because there was a hole in his sock. He has suddenly developed a distinct preference for one Thomas shirt over another.  He has opinions.No, he has Opinions. And if there is a creature harder to budge than a toddler with opinions I'd really like to meet that creature, and then slap said creature and challenge it to a duel.

Lately  he has begun to identify people by some aspect of their clothing, most often the color.  A guy in a Bulls sweatshirt will be a "red person".  Unfortunately, with the far and away favorite color for outerwear in Manhattan being black, and with us being a minority in a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood it is beginning to result in some situations, to quote the recently infamous sorority letter, that are so FUCKING awkward.  If anyone out there also has a two year old yelling "MOMMY, WHAT IS THAT BLACK PERSON DOING?!?" on a subway platform, directed at an older woman in a long black coat using a cane...you feel me.

Obviously it is mortifying in a general way when kids speak out of turn.  My little brother famously and frankly informed his day care teacher that she was fat.  Red tells a story about describing the exact dimensions of her mother's post pregnancy panties to a waitress in great and emphatic detail.  The fact that kids saying embarrassing shit isn't exactly newsworthy or groundbreaking, but, when you're the one standing red-faced on the subway platform in the path of a full and onerous glare...it can feel like you're the only person dealing with that particular problem in that particular moment...never a good feeling.

So, what to do.

I can't pretend that I'm in the position to give advice.  And I will admit here that though I know I have to "deal" with this problem I also know that, like all of Nico's quirks and phases, it could likely never happen again, or, alternately, could happen ten times tonight.  Living with a child IS like living with a schizophrenic squirrel sometimes - and I mean that in the best way.  The excitement!  The potential for injury!  The sharp little nails and teeth!  (Which reminds me...I really have to clip his nails.  Tonight tonight tonight.)

I've decided I need to address it with him.  If I feel embarrassed I'll apologize to the person, explain if I can.  Tell them (and remind myself) that he is only 2 and still learning.  Explain to him that sometimes people don't like it when you talk about their clothes or their hair, that this is something to be done in private, usually over a couple of bottles of wine and after a major reunion event.

Next up?  Figuring out how to defuse the situation when he insists that the woman sitting next to us on the train is, in fact, a man.

Best Friend Ever

It's with a mixture of wonder and awe that I've watched Nico lately, clearly and confidently taking steps toward becoming a person. It is difficult to look away from it. Like time-lapse video of a flower blooming, or, morbidly, something in decay. It is a miracle monstrosity. Watching how much he is influenced by the world around him, how every interaction and experience becomes a part of the binary code of what will eventually become the great and powerful Him. He doesn't even know he is building a personality, it's just happening, and the responsibility I feel to alternately influence those experiences or back off from influencing them is profound, huge, daunting.

I am almost comically not up to the task. It's hilarious that they've allowed me to parent a child. What were they thinking? They, whoever they are, are clearly terrible at their jobs.

People told me parenting was tough. They told me it was expensive. But the other side of those conversations always slipped toward the positives; how magical it was, the overflowing sense of love, the core-exploding life changes that inevitably occur. Except, for some people, those changes aren't inevitable. For some people, for me, there is a feeling of (just say it) guilt. Guilt that supercedes and overshadows everything else. I feel cripplingly guilty about that guilt. Guilt that I work and don't spend my days with him. Guilt that if I'm honest, I wouldn't really want to. Guilt that the joy I feel when I pick him up quickly transfers to relief when he goes to bed. How can that half hour between picking him up and bed time, 30 minutes of which is spent on the train, be both pitifully small and yawningly lengthy? (Guilt that it's so small. Guilt that it's so lengthy.) Guilt when he prefers Daddy to put him to sleep (What have I done wrong? Why doesn't he want me to put him down?). Guilt when he prefers me (He must miss me too much. I should spend more time with him.). Guilt at wishing he would just fall asleep when all he wants is another book. Guilt about that guilt. Guilt about that guilt's guilt.

Magically somehow this guilt has leaked into other parts of my life. It has honed and sharpened my ability to feel guilty. Guilt is keener. Longer lasting. Debilitating. It has a stench I can't wash off. Is there a more useless emotion, by the way? What a waste of time.

 The knowing we are forming him, causing little chain reactions that will run and bounce off one another and decide him. It's like a million doors slamming. I can't keep up, even to wedge my foot in. But then there are these moments where I glimpse the joy. I understand why people undertake the seemingly impossible task of multiple children. I get it.

He heard a saxophone on the platform opposite us. The train came and I rushed him on, not letting him wait to see the musician. A musician who always waves to him and changes his tune, literally, to a kid's song when he sees Nico waving violently from the Rockaway Parkway side of the station. I rush him. I'm a jerk. Impatient mommy. (Guilt.) I pull out my phone and offer a puzzle - something I try not to do (guilt) but something I sometimes must do (guilt guilt guilt). The rest of the journey is peaceful. We do the puzzle together. By the time we reach our stop we are both calm, cuddled on the bench of the train car, he reaches up to touch my face. We wave to the conductor as we do everyday. He blows a kiss. I watch her heart implode. We wait for the train to leave and walk carefully to the edge, onto the normally forbidden yellow barrier, and look at the tracks. These days he wants to walk down the stairs himself (guilt that I sometimes inwardly wish that he would hurry up, or submit to being carried) so we start our slow way down. Everyone rushes by. For someone who has always been quick, efficient, sloppily hurried, this slow motion is almost physically painful. I'm tired. I want to go home. I have a to-do list a mile long before I can collapse.

And then.

"Mommy?"

"Yes Nico."

"Do you want to be my best friend ever?"

Guilt...but so much love.

Blessed Are The Shoemakers

 When I attended boarding school there was a fair amount of after-school hours interaction with teachers - this mostly because school never really ends when dozens of teenagers are living, eating and sleeping on a small campus. When I tell people I went to boarding school they often ask me if we had secret clubs and uniforms and Feminist Lady Teachers Who Challenged Social Norms And Taught Us Lessons and if we often stood on desks to celebrate those teachers who were Non-Conformist Inspirations and I'm forced to tell them that: Yes. This is exactly how it all happened. Possibly with slightly more Green Day than you would think.

The thing about boarding school, and I'm not sure whether to chicken or egg this particular truth, is it is very similar to the movie versions of itself, either because it is or because kids make it that way because that is what they've seen. There was a fair amount of debauchery, sure, but there was also an aching wholesomeness about the whole thing, a whole big wearing a blazer with a crest, singing the school hymn, kicking at autumn leaves, wearing your pajamas in the common room and having your first real kiss outside the girls' dorm just before curfew on a cold January night that really, (thanks, Dad!), was worth the tuition. (OH! And the education! Um....also the education. That part was great. Really. Top notch. Term papers and what-not. Memorization. Fencing...)

Anyway, I was lucky enough to fall in with a particular group of kids who hung out at the home of the theater head and his wife - people who I love to this day as an extra set of parents. In my senior year, a small group of us would head to their house once weekly after school, an often dewy walk across the practice fields and through a bit of woods, for a family dinner of sorts. We would grab our mugs from the fridge (each kid had his or her name embossed on a mug - this was, as you can imagine, totally baller if you had one and totally godawful if you wanted one and didn't), and fill them up with the ever present (never-present in the cafeteria) soda. We would start cooking. All the ingredients would be in the fridge ready and waiting from a list I had provided. We, their kids, we would do our homework, listening to David Brubeck or the Grateful Dead, watched over by their collection of Don Quixote art. (Dreamers drawn to dreamers, I guess.)

I don't remember everything that I made, or even how many times this happened, but I know this dish was one I made a lot. I made it again last night and it had the effect of a particularly fragrant time machine, bringing me back to 17 - when nothing had happened to me yet, even though I didn't know it, and in a way when everything that would make me ME had happened already. A time when that kiss and those leaves and the little freedom of playing the grown-up to a group of people I cared about felt like the whole world.

Chicken Scarapiello  

This is my own version of this recipe, and, as such, it differs in some major ways from classic versions you will find online. Many of those include cherry or hot peppers, even peppadews. I substitute in a little bit of red wine vinegar at the end along with some lemon zest. This recipe will make enough for dinner for about 6, or dinner for two followed by days of increasingly delicious lunches - this stuff heats up like a dream. 

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs (Cut into 2-3 inch chunks) 
2 lbs sweet Italian pork sausage (Cut into 2-3 inch chunks) 
1/2 cup of flour seasoned with: 2 Tbs dried rosemary (crushed) (You can also use fresh rosemary, or a combination, this recipe is for rosemary lovers) 1 Tbs garlic powder 1 Tbs kosher salt 1 Tsp ground black pepper 
1 onion chopped 
5-6 cloves of garlic, chopped 
3/4 cup white wine 
2 cups chicken stock 
Zest of one lemon 
Glug of red wine vinegar 
Smattering of fresh parsley 
Preheat your oven to 425. 

Heat a fair amount of light olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of a saute pan but with some depth to it) in a large, oven safe saute pan (I use a paella pan). Meanwhile, dredge the chicken and sausage pieces in the seasoned flour and then brown them in the olive oil, perhaps in batches until all are browned and delicious looking. Remove browned sausage and chicken to a plate. Add the onion and garlic to the pan, slipping in a little more oil if it is threatening to burn. Once the garlic and oil are fragrant and slightly translucent (and before the garlic burns), deglaze the pan with the white wine, scraping the bottom to remove the crispy bits of fat and flour. Once all the "stuff" is up off the bottom of the pan, pour in your chicken stock and bring the whole mess to a boil. After the sauce is just at a boil, add the chicken and sausage back in, along with any juices that have escaped to the plate, and stick the whole thing in the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove and finish with a sprinkling of the zest, a couple of healthy sloshes of red wine vinegar and parsley to taste. Serve with rice or linguine.

And While We're On The Subject...

Remember that thing where somebody wrote something original about parenthood? What? You've never seen that thing? Well, pro-tip, don't look for it here, either. There's a reason why All Parents You Know have that annoying habit, even inter-generationally, of shaking their heads at each other and giving each other that "Awww man, KIDS, AMIRIGHT?" look that makes you, me (even parent me!) and anyone with feelings want to carve out their hearts with a spoon. OK, three reasons.

Reason one: Because it will hurt more!

Reason two: We all feel like kids forever, and for some reason this know-it-all parenting togetherness feels like a dig. We all become teenagers again: "Mooooooooom, gaaaaaawd." Don't ask me why. I only know it's true.

Reason three: Because human beings are basically the same, particularly when they are little. They are all adorable, sticky, sociopaths with no impulse control who are basically built to have shining moments of cavity inducing sweetness so you don't sell them.

This is all true.

Over the Christmas break, my mother-in-law, an otherwise sensible woman who makes very good childcare decisions, gave Nico a chocolate dipped biscotti after dinner. She defended herself by saying that she didn't realize he would like it, it being sort of hard and not very sweet. Oh Ann Marie. OHHHHH.

 I grew up in a house where I wasn't allowed ANY sugar. Like, nothing. My cereal was health food versions of kid's cereals, things like "Fruit Circles" or something that looked like nothing so much as Trix that had been left out in bright sunlight for a week and tasted like those wooden boxes they sell clementines in. (Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Arrest me. I should warn you I get super strength when I talk about my years of sugar deprivation. Now come and get it.) As a coping tactic I would sneak into my family's restaurant's kitchen before or after hours and eat sprinkles BY THE HANDFUL from a cardboard box hidden under the counter at the ice cream station until I felt lightheaded. My sister recently admitted she would sneak into the pantry in our old kitchen and house syrup like an alcoholic sugar vampire.

Moral? Kids don't care how they get their sugar, even if it's in the form of Italian pastry that tastes like stale cake or up-market Stella Doro bread sticks. (Oh, that reminds me: Dad, I ate those Stella Doro bread sticks you had stashed away in the bread drawer through most of the late 80's. Not mice. I just ate them LIKE A MOUSE WOULD. Because I am a genius and you kept no ice cream in the house. So really, this is on you.)

Nico proceeded to eat the chocolate bit off the bottom of the cookie like he was a cartoon character eating corn-on-the-cob, finished off the rest and went on to lose his damn MIND. High points included him lifting up his shirt and sticking out his belly shouting "You do NOT want to go into the forest!!!!" and filling a cup of water from his bath, handing it to me and asking "Mama - do you want some eyes for your eyes?" with a disconcertingly beatific grin on his little face. There have been few moments in my parenting experience when I have been more in love with and bemused by this little person I've been gifted with, and even though he was clearly off his head, I found his particular brand of zany out-of-control behavior almost painfully endearing. I felt like I was part of his pack, like he was letting me into some of the secrets in his shiny new brain.  I felt like those army scientists who gave all those soldiers acid in the 60's, but, you know, with biscotti and with more parental love.  My son - crazy and creative as me. 

So much love.

And then yesterday he tried to push me off the L train.

Awww man, KIDS.

Amiright?

Cynics: Born or Made?

I'd like to think I was fairly lighthearted when I moved to this city, but I'd be lying to you and myself if I claimed not to have become somewhat harder over the years. Maybe it's this place. Maybe it's just age and experience.  Maybe it's that good-bagel-making water.

Good bagels. Hard hearts.

Still, it was gradual and not at all as extreme as it is for some.  Cab drivers still remark that I'm far too sunny to have been here for the length of time I have.  But there have been changes, for certain. 

Travel with me to 2003.

I had been in New York for almost two years and was living in a crooked apartment in East Harlem. The place was actually pretty great, despite the visible slant, and a steal (!!) at $1350 a month. The only major issue is that I was denied that delicious luxury which is considered the borough-given right of most Manhattanites: food delivery.

The only, and I mean the ONLY place that would deliver to me was Domino's, which was tragic on multiple levels, not least because I was living right across the street from arguably the best pizza in the city and could have just got off my lazy ass and did a pick up. But it was the principle of the thing! Sure, I paid through the nose for a railroad apartment at acute angles but people would bring me shitty pizza and therefore it may as well have been Downton Abbey. "Cora! This evening we dine on thin crust pepperoni with a ranch dipping sauce! Give the staff an extra serving of cheesy bread sticks for tonight we celebrate!"

(I should also admit that it took me a while to get the guy to actually bring the pizza to my door.  First he would only come up one flight of stairs, but slowly, after months of careful coaxing, I had him trekking up to the top floor.  I am known in some circles as the Pizza Delivery Dude Whisperer.  Truth.)

So there I am in 2003 sitting (at a slant) on my Ikea chaise watching the news and it turns out that this pizza delivery guy is missing, last seen before making a scheduled drop-off inside one of the projects in Central Harlem.

So, to review: human being missing, probably for quite sinister reasons. My first thought is: "Fuck. Now they aren't going to deliver to me anymore."  First.  Thought.  I seriously recoiled from myself so hard I leaped sideways out of my body and gave myself one of these:

But seriously, he was fine!  The guy is OK!  Well, maybe not now.  I have no idea how he is now.  But then!  Then he was fine.  Trapped in a shitty elevator for 7 hours or something.  But!  Not stabbed!  Still...the black mark on my soul is at Lady Macbeth levels of sticktoitiveness.  Tenacious little bastard, that memory.

It's hard not to get hard.  One of the things children are terribly useful for, I think, is a gradually softening of our psyches.  Short, sticky and sometimes screechy reminders that life is actually pretty beautiful, surprising and grand.  That deep down we are built on good stuff. (Until they kick the cat for fun.)

Wherefore all this introspection STL?

I met with a life coach last night - an old friend who turned  her world around brilliantly and discovered that she has a knack for helping people see their own way to happiness and fulfillment and making the best use of themselves.  (And she does have a knack for it - I experienced it first-hand.  Knack with a capital Kna.)  We got together to discuss the color of my parachute, as it were, and ended up telling horror stories about horrible bosses and the abuses they can heap on their admins - always good times.  As I walked her through my career history, and meandered for the first time in a while through that narrative (which is really rather rife with disappointments and heartbreak - not on any huge scale but enough to make retreat the only viable option) I could see where and how I hardened up when it came to myself, my dreams, my wonder and belief in the world.  My foray into finance doesn't seem like such a mystery today, as it often does to me each time I schlep to Midtown and sit down at a desk to do something I'm good at but in which I find not even the smallest iota of joy. 

All this time I thought I had given up, or that I was hiding here, but, just maybe, I've been getting stronger, coming back to life, softening up in the all the right places.  She helped me see that there is a lot about my current situation that I'm no longer willing or wanting to tolerate - that my dissatisfaction is real.  That I'm not greedy to want more than a paycheck when so many people don't even have that.  That I've been approaching my professional life with a cynicism I'm far too young, vibrant and full of possibility to allow.

Enough rest.  Time to get soft.  Time to feel.  Time to find my bright-eyed optimist.

I won't get fooled again.

Cream Cheese

You guys, I totally cheated on New York this weekend with a quick trip to Philadelphia and I have to admit something kind of awkward - I am crushing big time.

When Gillain suggested a girls trip a couple of months ago I was hesitant.

 For all of my hither and thither, and as much as I seem as though I have a well balanced (and sometimes imbalanced?) social life for the mother of a toddler, Rob and I have actually only spent two evenings away from Nico since he was born over two years ago: One approximately 24 hour period for our anniversary when we drove up to Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and one 8 hour period when he spent the night with my mother while we stayed in a house a minute or two away by car.

Being away from your kids, it seems to me, well - the longer you go without doing it the more impossible it seems. Furthermore, I felt bad that my first several-day trip away would be with my best friend, instead of my husband, but hey: Gillain and I have been dating since 1991 so there is seniority there I think. Yes? No? That's what I'm telling myself, at any rate.

Philadelphia is the perfect destination for a weekend away from NYC. It is only 2 hours (and $15) on the Bolt Bus, and it is sufficiently different from New York to constitute a real, rejuvenating change of scene. We had, also, the benefit of visiting in order to fit in some of the last performances in the Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival where we were lucky to see (among others) Pig Iron's Zero Cost House - which was a tremendously moving and satisfying afternoon of theater - the kind of show that reminds you why you go to these things anyway.

But, that's not why I'm writing.

I'm writing, naturally, because of the food. Oh man. THE FOOD.

Those of you who have read for a while will recall I used to do a fair bit of food writing here, as well as, in the early days, a number of reviews.  After a while I started to feel self conscious about it, who was I, anyway, to critique a restaurant?  And did I really want to keep on taking pictures during meals? (No, I did not.) 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I should own immediately that there were no cheese steaks consumed (I've had a cheese steak in Philadelphia, and it is certainly well worth doing), but our eating and drinking experiences were so excellent it would be cruel not to share with you my list of must-visits. If you ever find yourself in Philadelphia with meals to spare and a companion who loves to eat and drink as much as you do, hightail it to the following locations and know that I am somewhere, very jealous:

Honey's Sit'n'Eat

Do you hate breakfast and adorable, homey restaurants with good-looking, friendly groups of people manning the ship? Honey's isn't for you. If you love creative but not overly weird choices in the morning (Peanut Butter Chip, Banana and Bacon pancakes anyone?), old classics, wedges of crispy latkes with sour cream and applesauce, local bacon, freshly squeezed juice and bottomless coffee all for you-must-be-joking reasonable prices - then you should get your ass over to Honey's immediately. I'm not kidding, there will probably be a line (and cash only, is, as always, a bummer - despite a conveniently located ATM) but this place will not fail to put you in a fantastic mood (if a bit of a food coma).

Sansom Oyster House

So this is where we start to go nova with our food intake, in that everything at this place was pretty much flawless. A smoked bluefish salad, some perfect raw oysters (grant you they only opened them, and the rest of was really the oyster's doing - but that can be done only one way - flawlessly), peel-and-eat shrimp (a personal favorite of mine) and, the plat de résistance: BBQ'd Oysters. Have you had these? I mean, HAVE YOU HAD THESE? A sauce of garlic, butter, oil and herbs spooned into shucked oysters before they are grilled on an open flame? Do you hate pleasure? Why do you want to deny yourself joy? Please discuss with your therapist and report back.

 The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co.

After our final (and quite frankly, pretty terrible, show - something I would describe as what people who hate theater think theater people are doing when they go to the theater)we were ready to bag the rest of our evening and head back to the hotel in a rather mournful mood. Yes, that bad. Instead we wandered around trying to use Foursquare, Yelp and our Debauchery-dar to find a suitable place to return to a happy human state. This is, if possibly, my one criticism of Philadelphia - and it isn't really a bad one. Every city has its undesirable elements. In New York City we have two! But while tourists can be sort of a sweet affirmation of how much we love our city, the second element, the um...mass transportation element - can be just the opposite. I hear you Philly. I feel your pain. We passed bar after bar where the the Axe body spray formed a permanent fog, where the Von Dutch and Ed Hardy outerwear shivered menacingly in the darkness stretched over curated pecks, where big hair floated above tiny sparkly dresses and cheap platform shoes in tiny, identical armies. One such bar (not mentioning names) was described on Foursquare as simply: "Douche Central" and I have to applaud that writer for brevity in the face of horror. But all of that was why we were so happy to find The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. - a speakeasy-style cocktail bar filled with seemingly normal people who didn't, at first glance, appear to be talking about waxing. Just an exceedingly lovely place with, far and away, the nicest bouncer ever to tell us there was a fifteen minute wait. If most of that sounded pretty snobby....yeah, I'm kind of fine with that.  Look, I grew up on Long Island, we have similar wildlife.  Mostly I find them adorable, like small children who speak French.  Yup....there is just no way for me to talk about this without sounding stuck up so I'm going to stop.

The Dandelion Pub

If there is a restaurant more charming than The Dandelion I've yet to see it. A warren of rooms in what appears to be an old home and updated (and sometimes not) British classics? I mean, obviously I'm going to love this. We had fish'n'chips and the English Breakfast - but I want to go back and try their Sunday roast.

Aside from a few drinks at our lovely Marriott and a cocktail at the Ritz - you're looking at my weekend. I hope it helps someone visiting that wonderful little walking city match their meals to the sights.

xo
 

Depression Diet

In May 2011 after a near catastrophic bout with depression that left me at different times listless, catatonic, tearful and angry, I took the advice of my therapist and visited a psychiatrist to the end of getting my chemically distorted brain on a mild cocktail of anti-depressants. I say mild because, to be absolutely clear, I was on the lowest dose possible...at first. She insisted  I'd only have  to be on them a year.  18 months and a dose hike later, I was still on them, and not feeling markedly better - mostly feeling as though I told someone I had heard an annoying sound coming from the basement so they started blasting Ke$ha in the attic.

 It's a weird thing to talk about your mental problems online, especially when, as it is in my case, I'm not even sure I have mental problems. Can I really claim to be sick, like a cancer patient is sick, or like someone with a "real" mental illness like schizophrenia?  Is that fair?  Like many people who suffer from varying forms of depression, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between "actual" depression, Depression with a capital D, and just sadness, or just lethargy, or just a general inability to keep calm and carry on.

I found and find myself wishing to know: is what I am feeling normal, and I'm just being a big wimp?  What is normal, anyway?  Are there people who go through life never feeling this way?  Or does everybody feel this way sometimes - and maybe not get as alarmed or worked up about it as their depressive counterparts?  If only it was a simple as a broken bone, or a bout of flu. Then maybe I would feel less conflicted about treatment.

A metaphor that has come to mind lately is one I'm thinking of as The Dark Room.  Let's say you are afraid of the dark and you find yourself suddenly in a room in pitch blackness.  You strain your eyes to open, and they dart side to side looking for a crack of light around a door frame, a glimmer of ambient light through the side of a curtain, ANYTHING to cling onto and push back the encroaching panic of being completely and utterly blind.  You could staunch the encroaching panic with medication.  Something that would make existence in the dark bearable.  Some magic pill that, maybe not the first day or the day after that, but eventually, would lull you into a state where the soupy blackness isn't as noticeable.  Something that would allow you to say, "Oh this?  Yes, it is dark.  But it's rather soothing, no?  Don't you find it somewhat cleaner and easier to handle than all that light?  I consider it less "dark" and more "a break from the glare!".

That or you can turn a light on.  Or leave the room.  (Leaving aside the obvious conundrum of how you can find the door, groping around, uncertain what kind of nightmare things lurk along the walls as you fumble your way to a doorknob.)  The question then becomes: is this room dark?  Or is it all in my head?

That is a scary fucking question.

I had to travel through depression as I upped my dose and my body became used to the medication back in May  2011, and I've had to travel back through that country, up and up through the levels of hell, no Virgil to be found, back through depression  and into the light.

I've been weaning off the medication for about five weeks now.  Down from a pill and half (my personal high, and still not even close to the four pill clinical dose) to one, and from one (about a week ago) down to a half.  The level of Out Of My Mind I have felt over the past few weeks trumps anything I have ever been through historically. I never want to go through it again, especially knowing that I'd have to cope with it twice: once on the way in, and once, more sordidly, more painfully, on the way back out.

Real depression, for me, almost always finds its way onto a plate - or off of one, as the case may be.  Though the image of a sad woman eating her way through a pint of Ben & Jerry's is ever present in our collective sitcom consciousness, food is such a source of joy for me I find that I can't stomach it when I'm sad.  I don't think (in a normal state of mind) I've ever not enjoyed a meal, on some level  or another, even if the food or company or setting left something to be desired.  Eating, for me, is and always will be a bite by bite reaffirmation of a beautiful life.  The best I can do in the dark room is eat an energy bar or sip broth, maybe a Nutriment if I'm feeling particularly weak (and retro!).

I knew I was coming out of it this weekend when I was able to throw together a meal, when the sizzling of onions in oil finally had the same palliative effect as a favorite song, and when the smell of food cooking filled me with hope  instead of revulsion.

I made arroz con pollo (and then a million other things as my heart and hands came back to life).

Eschewing the recipe my Dad gave me years ago (sorry Dad), I decided to wing it.  Brining drumsticks in salt, sugar and oregano and then browning them in oil, rendering the chicken fat out and the skin a crispy, crackling brown.  I sauteed the onions and garlic in that the leftover oil and cracklings, with a healthy dollop of pork belly fat from one of my freaky jars in the fridge.  (There is a certain shelf in there that looks like a mad scientist's lab.)  I returned the chicken to the pot along with two cups of brown rice and four cups of chicken stock, paprika, cumin and cayenne - sticking the whole covered mess in the oven at 350 for as long as we could stand it (just over an hour.)  Finally, I chopped up half a jar of jalapeno stuffed olives and two cured Meyer lemon slices and stirred them in with a couple of cups of cooked beans.  The spoon could barely stir it, the rice moving with a sticky unctuousness that does  not translate well to film, the chicken shredded off and I picked the bones out, like some new branch of fresh archeology, clean and long and knobbled at the ends.  Perfectly naked.

And then I ate.

Tentatively at first, a small ramekin only.  Thinking it was all the solid food my stomach could stand.  And then a second one, and a third.

Somehow, somewhere between the third and fourth serving, I saw the tiniest flicker of light.