the rose of kiev

Even in the best of times, depression is heavy. Therefore, when additional bad stuff arises, such as an illness or an injury, the extra weight can make life a lot more difficult. But even in that, there are often extra graces for the bearing. I wrote before about the small external graces that help hold up the heavy ceiling.  But there are important and specifically-relational graces that really shine during the extra-difficult times.  And sometimes, beyond all reasoning, those graces even come straight from the problems. In a mishap a few weeks ago, Dave sustained three major scrapes - one the full length of his right forearm, a deep one on his left elbow, and a nasty one just below his right knee.  For two weeks, he was limping and wincing, slathered up with three tubes of Neosporin and fresh wrappings every morning, was in too much pain to shower without help, and took as many painkillers as the prescription bottle allowed.  He was miserable, an...

Freedom can be huge and terrifying. Dave and I have been thinking about our freedom a lot, lately; it's becoming more and more clear just how open our future is right now. Right now, our only clear objective is for him to finish school and get his Master's degree in hand.  Under the best of circumstances, that will happen in September, just four months from now.  And in September, we'll hit the edge of the map. Uncharted freedom is not a place I really ever anticipated.  Frankly, I don't really know what to do with it. In this generation, there seems to be an expected structure of life events: graduate from high school, go to college, start a career, get married, buy a house, make babies, and raise a family. I am 25 and Dave is 28.  We have been together for 7 years, and married for 3 and a half.  I've finished college, and Dave is almost done with his schooling, too.  After that, he will, of course, begin applying for jobs, an...

  I believe that every person who starts a business to do what they love will always and inevitably find themselves doing things they definitely do not love for that very same business. I have resigned myself to the necessity of promotion.  What that meant today is that I smeared on eye liner, shoved on the tallest pair of heels I've worn since my wedding, and jumped in the car with a crumpled list of directions to retirement homes. These non-writing errands were not the kind of things I had in mind when I started  Memories in Print .  As hard to believe as it may be, I didn't have a burning ambition to walk across pitted parking lots in black pumps, to trade jokes with nursing home receptionists, or play awkward phone tag with activity directors at nursing homes.  But that's the stuff I did today. When I started this, I did it for the people  and the stories : for the chance to interview in great length and depth, for the joy o...

 

 

 

My husband, Dave, is diagnosed with depression. I, however, am not. This difference, exacerbated by my self-starting oldest-child syndrome, makes Dave's depression nigh inscrutable to me. But we are married, so we have to - we must - figure out how to talk about it.  It's been a rugged road, unpaved and pitted with mistakes and upsets.  But it is getting better, and it has been good for us.  And in the shmita we have come so far. But it is still hard.  Heartbreaking.  Some moments are still right to the edge of screaming unbearable. But we are fortunate, because those moments are the exception.  So much of what we have is summer night scooter rides , and eating dinner together on pine tray tables in the living room, and sharing Youtube videos of cats: bright torches staving off the night. But when the darkness does come with all its weight, it is the tiny graces, pinprick stars on a sable sky, that revive me....

I turned 25 at the beginning of this week. And I am full of hope. Life has been kind to me in the past year, and for the most part has gifted me with a tremendous time of peace. Peace is something I cannot remember having before, not like this. The timeline of my life used to be determined by drama, by crises.  Time did not pass in minutes for me, it passed by events: divorces, remarriages, confrontations, and the like. It started eleven years ago, on the week of my 14th birthday.  My parents' marital problems came bursting into the light and by October of that year, their marriage was done.  For the following ten years, it was events like that that marked my time; it was frantic living, fearful, frenetic, living from intensity to intensity. But somewhere in the past year, peace stole in on slippered feet and started sleeping on my couch.  I have just recently stopped tensing for the next blow. But peace makes me anxious, because who I am i...