So you think you know what bipolar disorder is

Have a look at this.

Note that bipolar is a dangerous illness, so painful that 30% of us kill ourselves before getting a correct diagnosis and treatment.  This can be hard to believe when someone is manic.  Mania is disturbing, and can read as arrogance and deliberate recklessness.  Families and friends often judge and discard us.

Note that our depression is not like yours. If you are a normie, you've known depression.  You probably managed to function and get through it. Ours is in a different category. Our relatives read it as not trying, whining, laziness. No one wants to be around it. Parker Palmer writes about a friend who came by every day and massaged his feet in silence.  Do you have a friend like that?  I certainly don't.

Note that something is missing here, and that's okay, a fact sheet can't do everything.  What's missing is that it's very difficult to find a comfortable treatment; side effects can be a bitch, like a lot of weight gain, or a sense of removal from life. Almost never does treatment work to restore a person to a mood-free state.  We are treading water all the time.  Worst, treatment can stifle the wonderful creativity that often accompanies bipolar.

Van Gogh is my favorite fellow sufferer.  His religiosity (seen today as "a symptom") gave him a restless drive to paint the essence in nature.  His family found him a trial and a disappointment.  Thank God he had a good brother who kept him supplied with paint and canvas.  Many of us don't have that relative. It's a difficult life.  Note that.



Bipolar Disorder Infographic — Healthline

Imperfectly Zen

Recently a friend asked me how I've dealt with the 48-hour-cycle of depression I've had for some time now ~ good day/bad day.  I had to tell her I haven't conquered it, though it went to rest during these last two months that included two cataract surgeries, a heart cath (without anesthetic), and frightening shortness of breath caused (it turned out) by a major UTI, which entailed a six-day hospital stay.

The hospital stay in the nice new Heart Hospital was actually the nearest thing to a vacation I've had in a long time; I just put it in there to impress you. The cycling depression didn't bother me much during that busy time.  Inbetween being tested this way and that I enjoyed sitting at the window and watching the Life Flight helicopters come in.  I thought a lot about sudden death. I also thought about depression as a spiritual ailment.

My first inkling of this idea was from Parker Palmer many years ago, his little book, Listen to Your Life,which has become a classic. There he talks about his own disabling major depression, how he learned through it that the way he was living and working was not the life for him.  He had not found his own life and work.

The black cat of depression

I think the word "work" there is important.  It can be hard to do any kind of work when you're really depressed. But we all need to feel useful, even when it's all we can do to stay alive. The women's sitting group that meets in my home has given me work to do, in the sense that there is something I do for other people on schedule.  It was frightening to undertake it.  It has helped to understand that leading the group is not about me.  I'm not giving a performance, I don't have to shine. It's about them - giving them a chance to meditate with friends, to hear the dharma, to talk about their own spiritual lives.  In Zen terms, I took my ego out of it.

I've found that the best way to put aside the dark thoughts and feelings that come unbidden to people with depressive disorders is always just to do the job in front of me (though sometimes intellectual tasks are beyond me).  One of the women talked about this last week, how she moves through her own unwelcome thoughts when she's cooking by putting her mind back on the task.  I've found this is a really good idea when I'm trying to chop carrots - not my fingers.


For me, another key to doing anything is that I don't do it perfectly.  My house is never perfectly clean (oh, I hear my Mother turning over in her grave).  When my group meets, I sometimes forget to put the tea water on. Last time I forgot about the chants altogether until after we got our tea, and so had the wonderful woman who helps me set up.  So we did a chant at the end.  Call it Imperfect Zen.

It happens that leading and teaching on this small scale are part of my way, and they are not for most people, depressed or not.  But there are opportunities to give to and serve the world in every single life. They are there even when we are crippled by depression. When you go to the grocery store, you can smile at the older child who isn't getting the attention the baby gets.  You can let someone cut in ahead of you on your way home. You can give yourself time to walk around the block, a change of air.  You can share a funny dog video on Facebook.  At your worst, you can "like" a friend's post.

It's the holiday season - you can wear a Christmas sweater - you can't possibly look as bad in it as that poor cat.  You can call someone and not talk about how bad you feel, but instead ask how she's doing.  If you're on the phone, not on Skype, you don't need to wear a Christmas sweater, but can stay in your gloomiest bathrobe.  Nobody needs to know.  No matter how the call feels, congratulate yourself after you hang up. You're a nice person.  It was good of you to try.

Need Demotivated? I Can Help You

Yes, you read that right.  I think it's time for Grandma to share some of her own tips for constantly demotivating herself.  Not sure how funny this is going to be, though I started with an idea of parodying yet another of those about 8,790,000 online articles about how to get yourself to do something you ought to do when everything in you cries out No! Or at least, most of you does, and hey, it's July.

But what about demotivating yourself?  A mere 59,000 entries about something all of us do most every day.  You can see this is a field crying for more content.  Meanwhile, exploring this got to be fun right away.  I took the quiz on demotivate.com, whose motto is, "If you're happy and you know it, find another site."  Their other motto is,

 Life sucks, give up.  

The quiz told me I am ~

On your way to true demotivation You are headed on the right path, just pick up a few bottles of vodka, wait til your dog dies and you will begin to finally feel how worthless your existence really is!

It's interesting to a demotivator to look up images for "Life sucks."  On one hand, you quickly get sidetracked into things like Cheezburger, which collects "epic fails," the best of which involve trucks whose drivers were probably both stoned and working above their pay grade.

At least half of what comes up on Google about demotivation is trying to motivate you in a sickening sweet way.  Now, I don't blame the people who make those posters, and sometimes put them on Facebook.  I know lovely people who do that now and then.  They are just trying to feel better.  I blame the society for making us all want to BE SOMEONE, and telling us that you can do anything if you try.  Especially when it tells you you can feel better if you try.

(Parenthetically, you really can't make yourself feel better, take it from an expert.  What you feel, you feel, including long bad moods that are profoundly karmic in nature.  But you're not allowed to be depressed and listless, are you?  It makes your friends nervous.  Actually, moods - energies - are catching, that's been studied, too. It feels good to be around a hypomanic, for a while.  Same is true of a depressive, except backwards.

[Even more parenthetically, I had the perhaps unique experience of being yelled at in a psych ward by another depressive for being depressing.  Specifically, I was playing Barb'ry Allen on the piano, which is not nearly so bad as cracking gum loudly and glaring at someone who is playing a sad song.  Psych wards are full of passive-aggressives, of course, the resident doctors being the worst.])  

Okay, where was I?
 
I wanted to be a little Zennish for a moment. I wanted to say that, while demotivation from outside can work, unfortunately, motivation from outside does. not. You can find learned articles about experiments that demonstrate that, if you are a scholarly type.  If not, allow me to summarize:  a sign on your wall, a post-it on your computer, people telling you to cheer up (don't you hate that?), these things do. not. work.  I know I am annoying you with my feeble cliched attempts to emphasize the point, so I'll make the point and run:  to be sustained in an effort, your motivation has to be internal.

Nor is internal motivation always good.  For example, you may have internalized at a very young age that if you were only good enough, your father would love you.  At least respect you.  And actually, painful life things like the delusion that you can make rejecting parents notice you often lead people to work hard and do good things.  Though mental constructions like that (if you only work hard enough . . . ) are often proven to be incorrect (are delusions, in Buddhist terms) with disastrous results.

And this post is long enough, so click here for a coffee mug that will help you stay pessimistic.  It's hard, with all these puppies and kitties on Facebook. Remember, they only enjoy life because they have little tiny brains not capable of hanging onto elaborate mental constructions.  Bless them.  Well, bless us all.

Music and words and work and . . .

No, not this kind of carpenter ant.  THIS kind . . . 

Words. I have always loved words, as art, making word art (poetry, fiction), escape, words and puzzles, which have something in common:  both mental constructions.

If you have to have words, you can take them into the body with sound.  One way I have healed as a person, I guess I could put it that way, is that now music enters my body and my body expresses it.  Not just toe-tapping.  Chair-dancing.  Better to do it standing up.  Then you can move your feet and it's just dancing.

Saw The Carpenter Ants Sunday at Natalie's Pizza here in town, right here in Columbus, Ohio, which was a cow town when I moved here and is now a pretty cool place.  So is Natalie's.  The Rev. Bush, above, commented during their show that when you walk into a place and there's the owner to greet you, you know you're going to get good food.

If you want a Buddhist lesson, there is an important one in that.  Natalie owns it, designed it, it expresses her, it is her work and that work gives something of value to the world.  That makes her a very lucky person - she has found what she has to give.

I am dis-couraged about that myself.  Giving poetry is hard; most people don't want poetry in this, what my students would call "today's modern contemporary world."  (I still laugh a little when I write that. Bless their little hearts.)  And I guess it is hard to separate yourself from the desire to suck-cede, I mean succeed, to Be Someone, to Matter, to imprint the world, so as not to totally die and disappear.  Why should I bother with a poem or, of course, with this blog?  So one day some lonely adolescent behind a locked door, some elder who's not very mobile anymore, will feel connected, might feel connected to me?  That's what I got from poetry when I needed it.

That would have to be the motivation, because there ain't no money in poetry, and many people competing for it.  And because poems come to me, so it's something I do, weird and archaic as it's become.  I like words on paper more than words in the datastream.  I actually rediscovered recently the pleasure of writing with a wooden pencil.  I'd forgotten.

So that, and getting used to Being Ordinary.  I wonder how many other people get the edged gift at birth of a mother who is sure you're going to Be Someone Special, though she never was?  It seems to propel some people, though not into poetry. Not that being Special is the road to happiness; I'm sure it's not.*

And gosh, I almost left out how hard it is to be old, energy depleting, and on top of that cursed with a cycling depression.  At least the damn thing cycles up the hill as well as down.

Music is good for you.  I recommend it.  I vow to listen to it and to make it, if only by tapping a spoon on a glass and a wooden table.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*I just used that semicolon with defiant pleasure, because Kurt Vonnegut taught never to use them.  I don't have to listen to other people on these things anymore.  At least not in this blog.

Sick of this weather?

Worse, my body is officially sick again - a kidney infection, at least - and I've been observing some things about being sick.

First, you don't have to be miserable.  If your serotonin is up - and it is April, after all - you can be in a  good mood while sick and tired. 

Second, if you hurt a lot, and my left kidney really does, you can forget about it while concentrating on something else.  In my case, it was picking up the antibiotic and $100 worth of no-effort food at Kroger's after the doctor visit.

Third, being sick gives you permission to indulge yourself.  I picked up various little things I like, including ~

Double-stuf golden Oreos (quick low-blood-sugar treatment), on sale
Two bars of nice-smelling soap, on sale, for my dresser drawers
A package of those pink cupcake things with coconut on them that used to be made by Hostess.

Now really, I thought, why do I have to be sick to treat myself to these little things?

A pointer:  Be prepared.  Feeling ghastly last night (serotonin way down) I bought a dumb e-book for my iPad.  I took the iPad along to the doctor's office where it amused me while I waited, and so I would have it if they decided to admit me right then, always possible.  They take transplant patients seriously.

The infection is in one or both of the old kidneys.  It would have been nice to take them out when they put the new one in, but it doubles the length of the surgery (which is over 3 hours anyway), and that's riskier the older you get.  Or younger, if you're getting younger.  Haha.

I also realized that understanding Buddhist thought is as important to my happiness as meditation is.  I don't know how many times I've chanted The Five Remembrances and told people about them (they are at the bottom of this blog).

I am of the nature to grow sick; I cannot escape sickness.

Really, you can't.  Therefore getting sick is not your fault, no matter what your father said.  Shit happens.  Karma is very complicated, and most of it is out of our control.

This is why so many people have been disappointed by TM, Deepak Chopra, and a squillion other gurus and programs and face creams that promise to fix you.  We are of the nature to fall apart, and all repairs are only temporary.

Not that I like it, you understand.  You don't have to like it, as long as you get it.
~~~~~~~~~~~
update:  It wasn't a kidney infection after all, but a muscle problem caused by my lifelong scoliosis and a bad fall last year, which fractured a vertebra and led me to become even more sedentary than is my natural state. And I didn't have to go to the hospital. Still, you should always take your tablet. You never know.

It's a Long, Long Trail: Some Thoughts on Spiritual Practice

This is a popular quote, and there are a lot of images of it on Google.  I like this one, which shows a woman who is experiencing some "negative" emotion.  Negative emotions are those the culture doesn't want women to have, like being royally pissed off.  Men are allowed to have those; in fact, they're the hallmark of a Real Man, the kind who beats his wife, then apologizes abjectly, blubbering, drunk, of course, then beats her again and again and so on until something gets her to a safe house.  It should be called Rage Disorder, but the women could not get that into the DSM-IV.  There's a whole book about that.

Or maybe she's experiencing the astonishment of realizing what she's been put through because she was born with a vagina.  Not leaving out you men; there are victims among you, too.  But in my category - intractable PTSD caused by childhood sexual-and-emotional abuse, it seems that more of the victims are women. This is usually not diagnosed.  Instead, the locked-off pain manifests as chronic depression or bipolar disorder or fibromyalgia or underachievement, or all of these with anorexia and psychosomatic ailments thrown in.  Don't leave out the alcoholism.  Girls Wine and Whine.  And then, Smile!  There are no effective medications for any of these effects of abuse.  How could there be?

Here's the truth that pisses me off: the quote is true.  Reality is sometimes hard to face.  That would be why a lot of people don't.

What you think when you start meditating is that it will cure you, relieve your stress, make you happy, and also nice.  Yes, it does allow a space for healing, it will relieve stress for a while, maybe even for a few hours afterward.  But that just gives you fresh eyes on your condition, your life.  After a while, little unwelcome insights will start creeping into the meditation itself, Yow!  The mind clamps down on that, and the meditation becomes boring.  You get restless.  You think, This isn't doing a thing for me.  You decide to try something else.

The road to realization is less traveled for a damn good reason, in other words.  There are passages on the Way that are subject to avalanches of unwelcome memories, tears, rage.  Most people - even those who've had a chance to work with  genuine teachers - quit the Buddha way.  From where I live, it looks like half the Buddhist Teachers in America are in California, but you wouldn't believe how many unenlightened people are lying around beached out there.  People with opportunity.  Some of them - most of them, I bet - tried meditation.  My (estranged) sister once told me she went to hear Thich Nhat Hahn.  Shrug.  "It didn't do anything for me."  Well, neither did the desert in bloom (a wonderful metaphor and fact.)


If you are practicing outside an authentic system, if you don't have a teacher who's actually walked the whole damn path, you haven't got a chance.  Facing life will scare you to look for another self-styled Life Coach or Guru, another cheery book, another sweet quote, a great new recipe, oh, of course, new shoes! - in short, another way to escape reality.  That's the road more taken.

You wouldn't believe how I had to search to find a version of this as I remembered it.  Thank you, Kenneth Moody-Arndt.   I especially like this verse:
You must go and stand your trials.
You have to stand them by yourself.

What to do when you just can't meditate

Can't, won't, don't want to, whatever.  Seriously, I did enjoy watching this amazing invitation to a mixture of overwhelming self-pity and glee.

You didn't watch it, did you? Five minutes is more time than I am usually willing to give a video these days, and I understand that's now normal.

But if you did, it might destress you some.  That won't last.  I liked it and laughed at the sheer joy of surfing, but I had to think, I so wish I'd done that shit when my bones were good.  Latest bone scan showed severe osteoarthritis with high risk of fracture.  I'm supposed to see a specialist.  Yet another specialist.
 
I am in what I was trained to think of as a "bad" mood, i.e., one that made my parents uncomfortable.  Can't you ever smile?  On the other hand, if I was smiling, my father was likely to say gruffly, What're you smiling about?  My mother always tried to get me to ignore him by saying to me, Oh, grow up.  Just the kind of thing that makes you want to sing the Peter Pan theme song,  "I won't grow up."  You do see from this, perhaps, that I was not a popular item in the house I grew up in.

Why don't I blog more often these days?  Well, yes, I'm sick 50% of the time with a weird cycling depression no doctor so far has any explanation for.  There's that.  Should I waste a couple of hours on a good day writing this?  What's in it for me?  And same with my status updates on my Facebook page.  It does not grow because why?  Because the people who subscribe FOR FREE don't share anything, and rarely comment.  Why?  Because they got it free, and don't value it.  Just hit "like" and move on.  Same reason you readers don't bother to comment or write to me.

But see, I'm no fun.  As a blogger I'm nowhere, since I'm not hysterically dramatic in recovery famous holding contests, and blablabla.  I'm not selling fun.  All I have is reality, and that's never been big.

I've been doing a little Naikan lately - GIYA - and it has made me notice what I give and what I receive.  I give have given used to give to this blog, over 1000 published posts, and people think it is quite sufficient to mention to me or Tom in passing that they love my blog and follow it religiously.  But they don't write to me to ask why I'm not publishing, do they?

I should have been an electrician.  That's all.  Do something concrete, important, and well-paid.  This contemplative English major writer introvert thing - the only way it pays is if you write a book about it. That's hard to do if you're depressed.

Anyway guys, I have an excuse.  I'm sick right now with an internal infection in addition to my usual pain in multiple places.  On an antibiotic, which seems to maybe be doing the job, but will fuck up my digestive system for weeks, despite my good probiotic.  Maybe I'm just cranky, the way kids get when they're getting better.  Maybe I'll be back some day radiating cheer and joy and stuff.  We'll see.

What good poetry is

Sculpture and photograph by Rowen Gillespie

I am periodically suffering keenly these days along with a dear friend who's in the worst of the chronic illnesses, profound depression.  I can be too empathic, having experienced that myself.  It was long ago, but it was a long trek out of that landscape.

And I hate not being able to help someone else much.  You aren't, you know.  I was taken aback when I read in Bernie Glassman's book, Instructions for the Cook, that a bodhissatva goes to the well for a teaspoon of water, climbs the hill, gives a thirsty person that water, goes back to the well.  What?  I thought surely one could do more than that for the world.  Glassman himself keeps trying to do grand things - he once vowed to end homelessness - but I'm not sure how much they work out.

I found myself remembering the last line of this poem.  I, of course, would revise the penultimate line to read, "It is the blight we were born for."  I really dislike the use of "man" to represent the species.  It's part of that invisible water of patriarchy we all swim in:  men are human, women, are - other.

Hopkins was a deeply spiritual man (who has been described as "gloomy.")  I imagine he would appreciate the correction.  They didn't know better back then.

But how the good Jesuit nailed it in this poem.  It is ourselves we mourn for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spring and Fall
     by Gerard Manley Hopkins

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

Sun and shadow

Life certainly is, isn't it?  Tashi, now, is alert for the sunshine, and enjoys it fully.  I've had to work at being that smart in my animal body.

I do credit what happiness I have to many buddhas and bodhissatvas along the way - the helping hand you sometimes get in unlikely places.  But most of all, I have to credit my practice - and the teachers who have nudged me along the Zen path.  It is said that "A Zen student must go straight on a narrow mountain road that has 99 curves."  And curve balls, too.

The course description below nods to major things I've learned as I stumbled on.  As it implies, the practice goes far beyond meditation to pervade our daily life.
If you live in the Columbus area, you can still register for this fall session through Friday at 7 pm.
(As for the way this messed up the formatting on the flier - I give. I'm a writer, not a graphic artist.)
~~~~~~~~

The Zen Way to a Balanced Life
A four-week course in establishing a daily life practice.

11:00 - 12:30 Saturdays
November 2, 9, 16, 23.
Columbus, Ohio

Meditation is widely prescribed now for stess relief. However, it was not developed in as a sort
of mental backrub, but as an element of a wholehearted life.

Everyone is invited, regardless of experience in meditation. This course will ground you in both
walking and sitting meditation (zazen) as they have been practiced in the Japanese Zen tradition
since the 12th century. It will also touch on the principles for living deeply that are sometimes
called The Boundless Qualities of our minds, with emphasis on equanimity. Zazen and these
principles are compatible with every religion and belief system.

Each session will also include chi gong techniques for awareness and relaxation, suggestions for
nourishing our own basic goodness, a brief creative exercise, and opportunities for sharing. We
will touch down on —

Setting up a daily meditation practice

Managing your life and time

Relieving stress and depression with gratitude

Finding meaning in creative giving

The course will meet in my home in Clintonville. The cost is $60, payable in advance by check or
Paypal, $50 for students and seniors. To learn more or to register, e-mail Jeanne at
jdesy@zencat.com or call 263-9275.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contemporary Zen strays by struggling to get away from the heart's
innermost request - to realize the same heart as Buddha. Our problem is not
that we aspire too much, but that we aspire too little, and aim for selfcentered
wisdom and compassion rather than the full-blown real deal.
~ Dosho Port
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeanne Desy began practicing meditation for healing when she had breast cancer in 1997, and
has led meditation groups and workshops since. She earned a PhD in literary theory at Ohio
State in 1995, and has taught literature and writing at several Ohio colleges. Her fiction and
poetry have won Ohio Arts Council awards. Her story, “The Princess Who Stood on Her Own
Two Feet,” is taught around the world as a feminist fairy tale.

The Zen Way to a Balanced Life

 Bring it On - That is the title of this charming sumi-e painting from Nine Lives Studio.  I feel a little like that kitten - rather fluffy (gained a couple of pounds recently) and not quite sure on my feet, due to tardive dyskinesia (yes, brought on by a medication).

Nevertheless, I am leaping.  I am offering a course called "The Zen Way to a Balanced Life," to begin in November and meet for four weeks, ending before Thanksgiving.  I'm trying out a Saturday morning meeting time (10:30-12:00) so those who work during the week or don't care to drive at night can attend.  The course will meet in my home.

What, am I crazy?  You know I am.  That's actually my primary motivation for sharing Zen.  It has helped me have a life despite bipolar disorder and PTSD. 

I began meditating in 1997 because I was afraid my breast cancer would kill me.  I still get acutely anxious sometimes - there is no cure for being human - but I'm alive. Two years later my practice helped me get through the mental tornado of being yanked off  lithium - twenty years of over-medication and toxicity was harming my kidneys.  No one had told me it could do that.

Many practices begin the way mine did - with suffering so acute that you're motivated to do something.  That particular problem passed, as all things do, and then came the next car in the train of human life, which always has plenty of dark cars.  More, as you age.

Zen can help you survive these things with some grace, if only because it teaches you to let them pass.   Along the way, zazen builds some of the skills needed to live a peaceful life.  Maybe most important to me has been equanimity.  The ups and downs of life are bigger for people with emotional disregulation.

Of course bipolars are not alone in experiencing joy, depression, frustration, dissatisfaction.  We may be  more intense than the temporarily normal, and have often had more bad luck, but it's all about being human.  As the Buddha said, life is hard.  Practice helps.

You are invited to e-mail me for a description of the course.  My address is in the sidebar to your right.
~~~~~~~
p.s.  If any guest doesn't care to have a cat around, we put Tashi away.  That does sometimes mean faint plaintive meowing provides an opportunity to practice patience.

Self-folding cat

Good News Never Hurts

The video - it just puts me in good spirits to see an old guy up there with his grandson, still making music.  In fact, the existence of Pete Seeger cheers me up.

I thought you'd like to know the followup to my last post.  If you're new to this blog, maybe you should scroll down and read that first.

Okay, welcome back.

Not long after I put up the previous post, the Good Doctor did call.  I call him a Good Doctor because -
(a) he did call, and
(b) he started by explaining why it took him this long to call and apologizing.  A doctor who apologizes for your wait.  On Facebook, I'd punctuate that like this.

Here are the notes I typed into my computer as we talked, though it hurts my poor cervical spine (neck) to do things like that.  I need to have Tom find that clunky shoulder rest I used to have on the phone, when I used a landline more.  You can be sure he will have saved it, and be able to stick his hand into a heap and pull it out.  That's the difference between us.  Two differences, actually.
1.  I occasionally throw something out or donate it.
2.  What I didn't get rid of, I can't find.
So, my notes:

he began with apologizing for taking so long, and explaining that he’d been trying to get hold of the radiologist, and finally did
neck pain is from narrowing of neck, like stenosis
there may be some leakage of spinal fluid around T8, but it would cause headaches standing that go away when you lie down (so be aware if that begins).  Or it could be a glitch with the test.  (Idiots would not strap me down, and I moved a couple of times just a little. Plus, do I ever really get still?)
B12 normal
TSA a bit elevated, but thyroid fine
so go ahead and schedule the PT, and they will tell me what I need to use to walk safely
I had a stunning release of anxiety, and did the hokey pokey, holding on to things.

Thus you can see I am downright optimistic, though that is probably temporary.  Still, it is an upside to bipolar disorder that we delightful, fun, creative people need to remember when we don't feel fun or creative, and perhaps are not acting as delightful as usual:  our moods change.  Everything does.

You know, a great many American women describe themselves as depressed.  My crazy friends and I agree, people who have never been disabled by depression have no idea how bad it can be.  My Buddhist friends and I suspect that most of what passes for chronic depression is actually the dissatisfaction that comes with human life, especially in developed countries today, where people have too much time to think:  the craving to Be Somebody you're not, to have More Love than you're getting from your kids, your family, the opposite sex, your boss, etc; to not age, and certainly not die.  And there are the miscellaneous delusions, such as the well-established belief that wine really isn't alcohol because it's made from a plant.  (I had to tell the woman who told me that, so is vodka.  So is bourbon.  Etc. Somehow, we don't get together anymore.)

But life does have its rough spots, and sickness, aging, and death are big ones.  Next thing you know, you're learning to meditate lying on your back in bed with a tiny heated pillow under your neck.  I may well be the world's foremost Zen expert in that particular unconventional posture. 

Free Legal High (They haven't outlawed music yet)

I know that many poor souls have to work on this nice Friday before the Labor Day Weekend.  Some can't even leave early for the last drinking-eating-fun weekend of summer here in the United States.  That's not my thing - I don't work anymore, and my idea of fun is watering my hanging basket.  The wave Petunias have been wonderfully sturdy.  But I sympathize.  I get tired and depressed, too, and have to spend time on lots of things I didn't sign up for.

So this morning I consoled myself with this iconic* comic monologue-song.  Here you are, 18 minutes of pure pick-me-up laughing and dancing in your chair.  I was tempted to join the standing ovation at the end.

Those who were not alive and kicking up a fuss in 1967 can read all about this recording on Wikipedia.  Here is  something of a plot spoiler - this song was an incitement to subversion, an instruction on how to beat the draft nonviolently.

Remember 1967?  I do.  Littering was an issue, as it is in this song.  Arlo Guthrie, activist son of Woodie Guthrie, was so famous he would be an act at the Ohio State Fair years later.  (Yes, I saw him.) I was a 25-year-old housewife gone back to finish college now that my daughter was in school full-time.  All around me in the classrooms were weedy, pathetic boys who should have been going into a trade, but were desperately hoping not to fight in Vietnam.  They weren't conscientious objectors; it was pure selfish fear of dying, something veterans of earlier wars would never have owned up to.

Wars.  Some things never change.

But some things do.  Today we have young women that age joining the military of their own free will, fighting sexual harassment at West Point, wanting to be in combat.  I didn't envision this in those feminist anti-establishment days.  But I've come to believe that we have to be prepared to defend ourselves in a broken world, even as we practice nonviolence and pray for peace.

The Dalai Lama blessing his armed guards

Photo by Alison Wright, from an interesting interview in the New York Times Lens about her experiences photographing Tibetan nomads.
~~~~~~
*I know, I said I'd never use that word.

Today's Fish Selection, Carpe Diem

Sitting here tonight - it is 11:19 pm (the way we've learned to tell time digitally, instead of ghe more casual "almost 11:30) or "past bedtime" or "getting toward midnight," and you probably know I've been faithful to a bedtime routine that includes getting off screens at 9 pm, okay, sometimes pushing it a bit.  I've done a lot of things those who style themselves experts in sleep call "sleep hygiene."  (The very term makes you not want to do it.)

Because over and over I keep learning it doesn't pay to be good.  I mean, to be obedient, to let someone else tell you what is good for you.  I've had two nights running now where I did all that shit the way I was supposed to and still couldn't get to sleep until 2 pm.  And then only because it occurred to me to take another 6 mg of melatonin.  Jesus.

But I've had a good day here in spite of that, or maybe because I was just too stressed from it to behave.  Started right off with a nervous breakthrough, that's where I get really upset at someone and have to practice right speech like crazy and take some ativan.  These things usually happen when I've been too f---- patient, too nice, put up with crap until it nudged me over the line.  It's always a good thing in terms of clearing my mind.

I got closer to some women friends today as a result.  Made it to church, but not to the worship center.  Just sat in Fellowship Hall and talked to people, starting with, thank God, Barb.  I told her how I can predict tomorrow to be a bad day, and just knew I wouldn't get in the car at 3:00 (my low point of the day, except I get worse until about 6:00 on a bad day) and go to Art Journaling which is now a semi-private group of very nice women who are interested in each other's art-making and old enough to be cool.  Women you can talk to. I love the intimacy of making art with friends.

So Barb said she is going to be babysitting Christopher tomorrow, and how about they come and pick me up and take me to art?  Now - that is a bodhissatva at work.  Barb happens to be a UU Christian, I'd say, and I am rather that too, but primarily Buddhist.  Who cares?  Kindness is the basis of all true religion.  No doctrinal arguments there.

It's been a hellish week for me, still alternating days good/bad like f------ clockwork, and my depressed days really black, maybe because of learning about Scott's death Sunday, on a bad day, and then the funeral last Thursday, another bad day, and I never should have gone.  I quit.  I am not going to anymore of these goddam "Memorial Services" unless I feel good.  I personally hate the way my church does funerals, where everybody talks about celebrating someone's life - yeah, celebrating.  Scott was 49 years old and died of a massive heart attack.  What is there to celebrate about that?

Nobody ever breaks down sobbing helplessly at these things, it's like that's everyone's goal, not to cry.  Actually, that's been true of every f--- funeral I've ever been to except Sarah's last fall.  Sarah's, we cried, her sister sobbed, a minister spoke briefly of death and loss.  But the ones at our church . . .

It has never worked for me.  I can't drink now, with my meds, but what I'd really like is to go to a good Irish funeral as I imagine them, I don't care what the religion is, as long as people wear black and weep.  And then everyone should sit down to a lot of good substantial food and get drunk and kiss people in the hall and hug each other and tell people sloppily you love them.  That's what you should figure out from being around death:  get into life.  Get with it.  Live it.  This is no time to be civilized.

Alright.  I'm going to break one of my own sensible rules and post this tonight.  I hope you like the cat pictures.  And by the way, I love you guys who read this.  Sometimes I feel so tired and lonely in the middle of the night, and it's consoling when I see someone on the other side of the world is reading this blog that very moment.  I love that.  This is my little bit of string.

Getting Through a Bad Day

It's very curious to me how little professional information there is on living with bipolar disorder.  That may be because chemical treatment was embraced so enthusiastically last century.  Also because psychiatrists are first M.D.s, and Western medicine is simply not holistic.  It embraces a very limited "science" which is constantly proven wrong (e.g. mice are not much like people, see today's NY Times). But I digress.

As that digression suggests, I'm writing on a good day.  Perhaps because of going off the Seroquel, and  perhaps because it's February, I am back into that peculiar schedule of good day/bad day.  Having exhausted the resources of Google, I've come up with a plan for tomorrow, which may well be a bad day made worse by this cold (4th day) and even worse by Tom going out of town all day.  If I don't leave the house I might not see another human face all day.  

The only useful idea I was reminded of as I researched managing bipolar was the idea of putting a certain scheduling and regularity in the day.  I knew this experientially, and am pleased that it's now recognized as a form of therapy, interpersonal and social rhythm therapy (IPSRT).  Here is a quote from an article in Psych Central: 

Social rhythm focuses on developing and maintaining regular routines. Research has shown that “disturbances in circadian biology are associated with bipolar disorder,” but “there are social cues that can help entrain one’s underlying biological rhythms,” Dr. [Holly] Swartz said. Such social cues include keeping a consistent schedule of sleeping, eating and other daily activities.

Add to that getting dressed with shoes on and coming out of that dark room, which are things they make you do in psych wards.  So I have scheduled my day tomorrow.  Unless the weather is awful, I'll even leave the house to go to the library, a nice low-stress place where I might get to smile at someone.

The single most important thing on my schedule, though is . . . I know, you guessed:  my practice.  I have learned that unless I'm physically very ill and fatigued, I can do my morning spiritual practice.  Interestingly, that is the least depressed half-hour of a bad day.  I suppose that's because I'm focused on what I'm doing and not indulging in the dark thoughts or clinging to the pains and other unpleasant sensations.  

My practice has two parts, bodywork and sitting meditation, and I've spent many years learning how to do both of these in a way that works best for me.  I'll discuss what I do in future posts.  Here I'll say, my habit is to do it after my morning coffee but before breakfast.  It is very easy to form bad habits, and hard to form good ones, but a good habit has a lot of encouragement power.  It's like, I don't feel like it, but this is what I do.

And this . . .

. . . is what I do on a good day.  You are looking at the large mirror that covers one small wall in my bathroom.  You see the toilet reflected in it - see what I mean?  Those colorful stick-on Glitterpuff flowers are something I picked up on sale a while back (I sometimes get high, shopping) and sort of hid from Tom, as they looked garish when I got them home.  But then you find yourself in just the right mood one day.  (And if he's noticed them, he hasn't said anything yet.)  I must say, good day or bad, they make me smile.  Color therapy.  I'm serious about that.

I Really Am Bipolar

I have been officially bipolar since 1978, when I was correctly diagnosed after three years of hell.  First they got me settled down with lithium and stellazine, and I don't know what else; then someone confirmed the diagnosis; you are bipolar when your condition stabilizes on lithium.  I was so relieved that I immediately accepted the diagnosis.  From there on I let psychiatrists push psychotropics on me to such a degree that I lived like a sane person, got jobs, got into a good marriage, went to grad school and got a PhD, and realized that being a college professor was not a dream, but a nightmare.  My life felt tinted gray, but they weren't the worst years of my life.

But I digress.  That's one feature of hypermania.

Still, after all these years I don't think I quite realized what it meant to be stuck with bipolar.  This truth has been forcing its way in since that meeting last Tuesday in which the shrink he said he couldn't do a thing for me.  At the moment, I am sleeping okay.  The moodswings are another story.  The regular cycling of up/down days that Seroquel had damped has returned.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  On the heels of Tom's last fall, we are in the process of figuring out when and how to move to the retirement home we like.  At first we thought I would go there into a one-bedroom, where I might have a stress-free life while Tom stayed in the house and got some things done (and didn't fall down again).  But our financial counselor nixed that - just too expensive month by month.  By that time, though, I had chosen the colors for my beautiful little one bedroom.  (They paint for you.)  And just last week I got to see them on the walls.  Here is the living room -

 I chose those colors from a favorite still life with apples.  The windowsill is not purple, but brown, and the coral is really that bright.  It seems much brighter than it did on an apple and a little paint sample.  The yellow is pretty yellow, too.  I wanted the living room to be warm and stimulating. 

Above is a view of the living room from the bedroom.  Fortunately, I was inspired to choose the bedroom colors by a serene mountain scene.  That's a kind of French blue, not too vibrant, and the window wall is the faintest blush pink.  Actually, this room is a little bright too, in daylight, but feels overall serene and pretty.

The bathroom turned out perfect though.  The aqua is well-represented in the photo to the right.  I might go for that in the next place.

Here's my point:  When the admissions officer opened the door to that warm, really warm coral and yellow, I thought, "You can tell these colors were ordered by a manic."  It was one of those small experiences that keep coming along; some people call that gradual enlightenment.

As realizations do, that truth has been soaking in.  When I feel real good, confident, joyful, that can be hypermania.  It can lead to poor decisions.  I have been revisiting memories of extravagant purchases, of spontaneous travel.  And from the depressed side I remember raising my voice at someone who was just trying to help, and saying too much in another situation.  These things are called "inappropriate behavior" in the psych wards.

 I really am bipolar.

I really am stuck with this self and its chemical swings. Whether bipolar is a disorder or a chronic illness it's hard to live with.  And I think it's true, there's no mood-stabilizer I can take.  So I need to take seriously the problem of life style, how to live well enough on up days and down days.  Getting through hypermania has challenges, but is somehow more manageable than depression.  And a depression is probably coming tomorrow.  We'll see. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

The Unhappiness Disease

Henri the Existentialist Cat speaks for many

 I've been thinking about happiness and depression.  I know that a certain amount of our unhappiness is the result of what we tell ourselves, what we believe, our delusions.  Not everything we don't like has to make us unhappy.  To quite a degree, a resilient person can accomodate to life events.  There's a lot written about this.  But it doesn't apply to depression.

I am speaking of the kind of depression brought on by malfunctioning neurochemistry.  It is logically contradictory to think you can be happy while depressed.  Depression causes unhappiness.  Professionals call it anhedonia, the inability to enjoy anything.  Not even spaghetti and meatballs and homemade cherry pie. And it's not "all in your mind."  It's all in your brain.  In neural pathways and erratic switches that are not understood.  It features imbalances of of the feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. Nobody understands it well enough to cure it.  You try this, you try that.

It can really get bad is this time of year, for the Christmas season is the Great Spiritual Hedonic Holiday here in America.  We are supposed to be happy in a mellow quasi-spiritual way, surrounded by our loving family, generous, tra la la. When I say "supposed to be" I mean it:  that's what the culture is telling you with every song on the radio, every end display in Target, every commercial about getting all your Festive Crap needs in one store. How can you help but think, I should be enjoying this. It's The Hallelujah Chorus for god's sake.

Maybe when UPS delivers your Light Therapy box, you'll perk up. (Yes, I have one on order.)  Meanwhile, you aren't having any fun.  If you are inclined to, you can pray that nobody criticizes you for not smiling and  wearing jingle bell earrings.  Then you'll really have to work on right speech, again.

What to Do With the Mean Reds

I wrote the post below last Thursday.  Then Friday my mood was low.  Back up on Saturday, a pleasant mood that let me spend a very nice day with Cassie et al., celebrating both her birthday and my grandson's; he was born Christmas Day, so we try to give him a birthday party some other day of the year.  Otherwise, it just isn't fair.

Recently these visits have been so nice and stress-free that I've realized this is what childhood must feel like in a family of origin that is not hysterically alcoholic and abusive, a home you can feel safe in.  I am grateful I got to experience this at last.  Even today, in a bad mood, I'm grateful, and it's not just for a peaceable friendly meal, but also for the confidence I have that Cassie and Chris are responsible, kind people.  I'm glad I don't have to worry about them.  I don't think it's a good thing when people worry about their grown kids. Sometimes you do, but it shouldn't be a habit.

I used to feel a momentary blip of anger when my mother would excuse my father's rudeness, his black silent moods interrupted by an occasional sniff that conveyed his contempt for me.  She would adopt a voice she may have thought of as kind and compassionate:  "He's worried about you."  Well, that's a co-alcoholic doing her job well, saving her compassion for the alcoholic.  Covering the reality of the children's pain, excusing the poor sod who "doesn't mean anything."  This was a feature of his abuse of me, intended to diminish me in every possible way all my life.  His will dealt me a last huge blow after he died, the coward.  "Worrying" about me was not helpful. It was a form of criticism.  And these are the kind of thoughts that pop up when I'm in the mean reds.

I had to explain the term to Tom a little bit ago.  Here is what I had posted on my regular Facebook (though not on my Page, which I try to make more uniformly pleasant than my Self):

There are blue Mondays and then there are mean red Mondays. You are experiencing the latter when you are tempted to write to a spammer, "If I ever get anything from you in my inbox again, I will hunt you down and kill you."

And no kidding, I had just restrained myself from posting exactly that.

This is my brain on bipolar.  Holly Golightly, in Breakfast at Tiffany's, got the mood once in a while, as anyone might occasionally, but for reasons.  (Here is a link to the quote.)  The bipolar brain floats and dives on its own schedule and under its own power.  I've compared it before to living in a hurricane zone.  Hurricanes just happen, and you can't stop them; about the best you can do is hunker down.  What I was  maddest about today is that I had gone back into a rhythm of good day, bad day.  You can work with that.  You can get things done on a good day.  But today's the second bad day.  

I had a plan for today.  I'd been waiting to continue reading an old fiction I pulled out last Thursday, and read with pleasure and some admiration of the youthful energy that produced it.  I'd had to stop reading in the middle and go into my bedtime routine, or find myself awake half the night.  Now that I think about it, I don't like that, either.  I'm glad I realize that I have to control myself, though.  Mania feeds on itself.  The worst thing is to start  writing the Great American Novel all through the night, and the next day, and the next.  

On Friday I knew better than to go back to the story, because when I'm depressed I think everything I ever wrote is just not worth it.  There's the internalized Nasty Father, still criticizing harshly. Best not to give it the chance.  That's reality.

I could claim that years of practice have given me insights into karma like that, as well as the discipline to turn off the screen at night when I don't want to.  But that's about it.  It has not led me to constant joy or a reliable contentment.  The blues are bad.  The mean reds are worse - agitated depression, quick to anger at, for example, a photo posted by a friend at the end of a retreat, everyone in their black Zen robes with big happy smiles.  I can't do retreats anymore for multiple reasons of aging and chronic illness extending beyond the bipolar depressions into fibromyalgia and lymphedema torn rotator cuffs and sleep disorder. I wish I could, but I can't.

I can't think of any reason people shouldn't share their joy at a retreat of advanced students meditating their ass off and filling the air with good energy.  I remember how good it felt.  All I can do about my current reaction is refrain from commenting and go do something else.  Sounds like right speech again.  And again.

As for the mood, sometimes even a Danish and window-shopping at Tiffany's doesn't do the trick.  I just have to live with it.  Accept it.  That sounds like Zen to me.

Living With a Chemical Imbalance

When I woke up this morning, I knew this was a good day.  Actually, that's the schedule lately, good day, bad day, like clockwork.  Very strange, but then the bipolar mind is different than boring old sanity. As I was being glad I felt good, the koan came in, the one I've been carrying around for about thirty years.  I've written about it before.

If you do not say good
and you do not say not-good
then what is the nature of reality?

That got me thinking how I could describe these days without the evaluative terms good and bad. 

one type of day is -
high-energy in all chakras - it's remarkable
active,
interested in ideas
tend to talk and write a lot
very creative
motivated to do things,
enjoy art and beauty,
filled with loving impulses -
and I like that kind of day.  Who wouldn't?

the other type is -
low-energy all around
passive,
quiet,
uninterested,
unmotivated,
struggle to just do essential things
vaguely dissatisfied with everything, little feeling
tendency to sad, morbid thoughts - 
A mood too many people are familiar with, and no one I know likes it.

Like/don't like is about preference.  You may say everybody would prefer that high-energy day, and that wouldn't surprise me.  Still, the day is not intrinsically good or bad.  Those words are assessments.

If you just describe these moods, they are primarily different energy states.  There are roughly three approaches to any mood or condition:
.  just experience it
.  try to change it
.  try to escape it
I almost left out approach #4
.  grouse and whine.

Changing the state - You learn to do that when you feel too high. Sit down, shut up, breathe. Meditation is obviously good practice for this. And a bipolar needs to do it or come across like a Labrador Retriever puppy.  Changing the low state is harder, and often I just try to escape/endure.  Now that I think of it, there are ways to work with your own energy.  I studied kundalini with an excellent teacher once (Hi, Kit), and I know there are yoga poses that build energy.  I've also done some chi gung. There's a course in that at our local rec center, and I'm planning to sign up for that.

But what about the "just experiencing" part?  That sounds very Zen. Yet - who wouldn't want to pull the thorn out of your paw?  Enduring a mood is easy to do when it's high-energy full of dopamine and serotonin; I lose myself in whatever I'm doing.  Experiencing the low-energy state - not. I'm really fond of escaping it when I can find fiction to read or a movie.  This kind of chemically-based condition doesn't seem to benefit from self-examination and self-talk the way situational depression can.  And that's all I know.  Your thoughts are welcome.

How I spent a Beautiful Sunday

What I did yesterday (not in chronological order) -

dreamed in color

wrote a not-feelgood poem about my upcoming 70th birthday

answered an e-mail requesting wisdom without pretending to wisdom

posted a sharp, bitter retort to a racist Facebook posting by a relative, immediately deleted it on the principle that you will always regret making someone hate you, double that if it's a relative

threw a whole bunch of clothes on the guest bed, stating that I hate my entire fall-winter wardrobe, all these ugly colors

did not go to church picnic, full of resentment at the allergies that made my ear ache all day from just driving home from church with the windows up. But I'm in a nonpartying mood these days. I feel like the lone wolf in a world full of packs that are running about doing something that doesn't look like fun to me.  [probably should delete this]

the cat ran under my descending foot, got stepped on, screamed and ran away for an hour.  Apologies meant nothing to her, but the passage of time cured her.

contemplated driving to Indiana to go to an L. L. Bean store and pick out some pretty flannel shirts

asked aloud, "How am I going to amuse myself until I die?"

[deleted something here]

discovered an interesting writer, filled an hour studying "dead reckoning," a term likely to end up in a poem.  No experience is useless to an artist.

said to self all Zen-like, Don't resist the depression.  Just watch it.  Just feel it. 

shared the video above about a nasty old man who actually got a citation for harassing bicyclists - they filmed him.  I bet he told the police he was proud of it. [deleted some stuff here]

meditated.  Curiously, I am not so depressed when meditating; it cuts down the thought traffic, which is largely the problem.

And.....we went to see a fairly bad movie, unless you like Men in Black.  But the end takes it to Cape Canaveral, and Tom really enjoys all that space stuff.  Moreover, afterward we ran into one of my favorite families in the world and I got a lovely hug from one of the boys.  There are hugs, like you have to give at funerals, and then there are just hugs from the heart.
~
p.s.  I learned that Right Speech is almost entirely a matter of not saying things.  Delete. Undo.

Letting Things Change

the most fun thing I photographed all  week

This morning I woke up miserable - many pains and bad dreams/memories of a bad time in my life that I survived only through luck. I tried ducking back in bed, warming up, but it didn't work, so I got up, dazedly drank some coffee, and stretched and meditated. Sigh. This is the fibromyalgia at work, caused by major weather systems and the change of seasons. As if it's not bad enough to be bipolar.

One thing I have learned by experience is that I am not so depressed when I am meditating. I think that's partly because I am working, concentrating on following my breath, turning down the volume on unhappy thoughts. Also, when I meditate I intend to be receptive to space and the universe, a sort of listening similar to contemplative prayer.

But after that I was a mess again. Had to ask Tom for advice on which sweater to wear (he chose orange), spent ten or fifteen minutes putting a necklace on, partly the clumsiness of arthritic hands, partly the brain fog, a feature of fibromyalgia. It depresses normal (non-bipolar) people. And I think I'm over-medicated now as well; we'll see where this mood goes. But got dressed, got to church - on time! It was a beautiful sunny fall day.

At the door I met Catherine, a woman I know largely through Facebook. She is someone I feel warmly toward, because a while back she offered to tie-dye some of my boring white socks after I posted how frustrating it is to look for socks when you have large feet. I was on the tall side earlier in life, 5'8", though I am compressing now, and my feet have spread with age to size 11 1/2 narrow. I don't mind having big feet anymore, as I have figured out what feet are for, and am glad to be walking on them, but I can hardly find shoes that big, and no pretty socks.

Catherine stopped and said she wanted to tell me she reads my blog, and Thank you for sharing. Ahh. I was still cold, but I felt warmth in my center. And I felt somewhat enlightened by her comment; I realized my identity a little better, that I see this blog as an extended circle of friends.

I was still morbidly depressed. The sermon was interesting, and during it I wrote a poem that touched down on the memory of that very bad time in my life I had dreamed of. I wondered whether this was a significant date - I am sensitive to birth and death dates, sometimes unconsciously. And indeed, my mother's birthday was September 17, tomorrow. I don't remember her death date consciously; it was also in the fall. And here we are in this parade of deaths, our friends Teena and Greg, and now Tom's father, whose service is next Wednesday. Travel with our array of health problems can be an ordeal. Add to it all that grief.

After the service we came home and Tom cooked sausages and whole-grain waffles with maple syrup, and as I ate my mood moved up, who knows why.  I have never enjoyed a meal more. It inspired me to clean up the kitchen and put together a casserole for tonight. Cooking has become a sometime thing for me, and I welcome the times when I feel like doing it.

The thing I know now about pain and depression is that these things, too, change, and change faster if you don't grasp ideas that now your day is ruined, or your week.  Or that it's not fair - that was part of Mark's point today - it's not about fair. If you make a point of staying open to the moment, the whole world around you is changing, full of potential. This understanding is one of the teachings that makes Buddhism a religion, distinct from meditation for your health or to improve your business decisions.

[The image is the canopy for a fairy-tale like little bed in one of the Sunday school rooms in our church. Creative dance was held in that room yesterday.]