Two

I do not know anything anymore. I have nothing left to give and do not know how to receive. I want to go home. I do not want to go home. Nani wants me to be in her art therapy in the morning. I am tired.

This morning they scanned my brain. I thought as I laid there that I saw three circles of grey moving outward into black. The person operating the machine said I imagined it.

I feel as if they are gathering information on me to find out what is wrong with me and how to proceed. What worries me is that they all ask the same questions, and the nurse said to me that she read in my chart about a recent breakup. I told her that this one only one piece of many troubles, and that it bothered me they all seemed to be focusing on the same thing, jumping on only one detail or another.

There was a review today. All the doctors and nurses come into a room with a rollable desk containing every one’s charts. They ask the roommates to leave and then discuss your situation. They looked like a panel of judges there in white coats and told me that they were not sure just what sort of depression I suffered from, or how long I had suffered from it, and so that they could not answer how long I should be there or what strategies they would recommend for me, but they did say that I might leave each day for a few hours with an exit pass. So today I hope to go home for a bit, get some things and check the internet. Lunch soon so I will go to the canal for a cigarette.

So can you see already how I am avoiding writing about what is happening. It is a theme I shall continue to employ, and will break just now and then when I feel strong enough.

So how did I get here?

Where should I go?

And then what to do?

I can find making the smallest decision to be impossible. A phone call. Cooking. Leaving the house. I could let everything decline, break or crumble and somehow find it more fitting. I can be afraid of anything. I can find no reason to move. Saying people are worse off than you is the same as saying that you are glad that others suffer.

Today is my first structured day. I had panic not knowing where to be or how to get there. The nurse took my blood pressure after giving me my medicine which made me late for the morning walk. I was so panicked as if I had lost a child in my care and ran down the three flights of stairs rather than wait for the elevator. I found them following the nurse like small ducks in the rain. I walked alongside of them unnoticed, relieved.

Later I had art therapy and made a head garden with Nani. She made four heads and so did I. I also had a panic in finishing these heads, and wet my fingers to smooth out their features. I think they are nice. Next came morning rounds, all sad faces sitting against the walls of the breakfast room. Among these was mine. I spoke a little.

After all these morning activities the fear subsided and I went to the canal. I watched the grass and could not figure out whether the poetry was in the grass, or how each blade flashed silver in the sunshine, or how they moved in the breeze, but poetry was there for sure. The sun touched me, but I realized it touched everyone, and that this was beauty.

I began to cry. I compared everything I have made to what I can do now. I have made so much, done so much in my life and now I can barely walk it seems. But I do. Just one heavy step at a time.

So I stepped into my room. I looked for a doctor first, feeling so badly to ask for help, for someone to hold me and tell me to calm down. But I went to my bed and burst into sobs. The fact that he lays there with no energy made me feel his company like a brother. Franz. I fell asleep looking out the window.

I feared music therapy. Too close to the source, to the big bang, to where once I tried to escape. I will not speak about it. In the elevator I thought there must be reason for these structures. There must be.