What depression looks like

Photo source (great paragraph about depression admist a funny article)
I confess that I have played into the stereotype myself. Even though I have been aware of my depression for at least a year and struggle to live with it, I shrugged off the truth about what depression looks like when I wrote. It is my greatest regret in my re-writing of the Twilight story.

Depression does not look like droopy-dog from Looney Tunes. It's not that mumbling loser in the corner listening "How could this happen to me" by Simple Plan (*gag*) on endless repeat. And it is certainly not the catatonic zombie Bella Swan turns into for four (six?) months when her boyfriends leaves her.

It's Kurt Cobain laughing and playing with a kitten and his newborn daughter.

It's me right now, sitting outside a Starbucks on a busy street and feeling overwhelmed with gratitude. I am reading a good book which I got for free and will be paid to write a review for. I am going to help out at the food pantry later tonight in my community. I have two short stories I'm editing for work and I'm proud of their progress (and the meager amount of money I'll be picking up on Friday!!) I just got a call for a pre-screen to work as a supervisor at Whole Foods (which for me is a dream job right about now). A stranger dropped a mysterious card on my table inviting me to a "party experiment" that sounds right up my ally.

I'm feeling pretty good.

But that's right now, in this moment.

Saturday I got myself worked into such a fury of anxiety that I spent 24 hours vomiting. That happens to me about once every four months and it never gets "easier", in fact it gets worse. Much worse.

A huge part of me is terrified to go to this job pre-screen because I feel under-qualified and over-qualified. My hips are sore from working out last night and a very familiar voice in my head hisses, "See? This is why you stopped doing that. Just stay home. Just disappear."

I just left a counseling session where I used up six tissues (Ladies and Gentlemen, a new record!) and my therapist asked if I wanted to look into prescription medication. She's trying to get me better help, more adequate help, and that stupid voice in my head thinks, "She can't handle you. You're such a mess."

My depression is real. But so is my gratitude and my joy. I'm not an automaton, though I can lapse into that behavior when things are bad. Even at its worst I can still work up a smile for a friend or look presentable in public. Sometimes I tell great jokes or give deep insights. I'm still a human, still complicated and full of contradictions.

Bella Swan turned flat, which was surprising given her already shallow character. If a real person were to tune out like that she would be admitted to care instantly. Some people really get that ill, really disappear that way. But it doesn't look anything like what happened to Bella Swan. Her "depression" is an insipid lie.

When we think about depression in terms of characters like Bella Swan and not people like Kurt Cobain, then the whole person is not taken into account. Any indication of happiness, respite, or social lubrication is taken as proof that "This person isn't really depressed." I don't have to frown all the time to be taken seriously as a depressed person, and that shouldn't be expected of me.

And I'm ashamed that I ever played into that idea with my writing. I'm sorry that I didn't speak up sooner.

The importance of names.

My name is Aubrey, which everyone tells me is a pretty name. I choose to believe them. However, when people ask what it means I'm sure they're expecting something just as pretty. Maybe God's grace or Snow falling on white cherry blossoms in the fog. I don't know. But what my name does mean is "blonde elf ruler".

Yep.

Elves. They're all mine. Dibs especially on the blonde ones. Or maybe it's because I was born blonde. Whatevs, I have a ridiculous name. I'm named after a park where my mother was when she met my dad (aww, romantic!) What I'm trying to say is, names can be important because they carry stories and images.

One thing I like to think about is what would happen if Jacob Black and Bella Swan got together with a hyphenated name. They'd be the Black-Swans.

I think that is totally awesome! Swans are actually fairly nasty creatures, uppity and territorial. I kind of like the extremes of the bird, looking so pretty and yet being so mean. And black swans (barring the psychological ballet drama) are even more fabulous. I love unconventional beauty and all the ripe symbolism that comes with a black swan.

But now that I'm re-writing this clustercuss I can't use the same names. I'm combining some of the characters (they were meager to begin with) and I'm throwing plenty of my own pizazz to make this mine, but I have a response and it needs to be heard. Even if it is only heard by a dozen people.

But I'm stuck on the names. I like Adam for Jacob, because "adam" means Everyman and I want to write this from his perspective as a human representative in a wacky world (poor sap). I thought Jacob was a good choice for the original series because it means usurper and I was always rooting for Jacob to usurp Edward's position in the triangle!

But I'm stuck beyond that. I have ideas and hopes, little symbols that I'd like to pop in for added depth without making them too obvious or clunky. My vampires choose their own names and so they will be significantly more symbolic (I'd like to name the family Nuvola, Cavogente, or Mancanza. These have meaning for me but I don't want the difficulty of the Italian name to cause the reader to stumble. Originally I thought to name them Mangiapane but I like that name too much and I also don't think anyone can pronounce it*.

What do you think? Are names important or secondary? Can I just name them all Bill, Bob, Jane and Missy or should I really put care into their titles?

*mahn-ja-pahn-A!

Vampire chic

In a good photo there is a special something, an invisible "eye" guiding the viewer to a realization. I recently recognized it in the sweetness and kindness with which Bill Cunningham captures candids of fashionable New Yorkers. This ephemeral gaze can be brought to any subject, regardless of skin color, weight, age or handicap.

Skinny models on high-fashion runways are an easy target. They are easy to loathe and disregard as emaciated mannequins strutting for paparazzi. Only recently have I grown to appreciate the art and work behind modeling, clothing design, and fashion photography.

There is a fierce, cold quality which is alluring and unnatural. Why it is beautiful I cannot say, but it is beautiful nonetheless. It is this ephemeral, invisible quality that cannot be grasped but only recognized.

I've been stumbling around this idea for awhile now. There are two directions in which this gaze could turn. It could become universal, shedding beauty and attention on all subjects. There could be a kind attention, seeking out the beauty in every individual. He who seeks beauty will find it.

Or we could fall back on the easy looks of young, vapid children posing. I'm afraid when Smeyer wrote her books and gushed about the unnatural beauty of her vampire children, she was seeing with a closed gaze, the common gaze.

I'd like to play with this duality. I'd like the vampires, creatures who have been around for centuries, to have an open gaze. They are raised around their own "beauty" and bored by it. Instead they seek out the Realness of people. They see beyond their own hipbones and pale skin.

However their prey, the humans, are captivated by these unnaturally formed idols. The humans see blank faces, pouting lips, and uniform skin as perfection. It is a small and narrow sort of pretty, one which leaves the humans vulnerable and blinded. 

I don't want to hate the skinny or the pretty faces in the media, that is the wrong reaction. I will recognize that they are pretty, but I wish to emphasize that were it not for the demands of their prey the vampires could have kept their human form. A Smeyer vampire is a sad thing, two-dimensional and removed from complexity. At first the humans will celebrate and gawk, but in time a wider gaze will be demanded.