I talked to a friend last night who's been in the same boat for months (and maybe longer). Every time we talk, he tells me he's really depressed. Or really sad or frustrated or angry. Each time, the self-diagnosis is that he's not doing art, not setting a good enough example for his kid, not going far or fast enough in life. But then I talk to him a month or two later and he says the exact same stuff.
I'm not sure how to assess it. Is depression something that can just steal whole years of your life, and there's nothing you can do about it? Is making art just something he thinks he ought to be doing, but not something that's important enough to actually do? What actually gets someone to change patterns of behavior - what's actually effective? And does it come from inside the person or is it an external thing?
I appreciated listening to the Blindboy podcast episode where he talks about watching out for the start of bad cycles and cutting them off at the head. Noticing if he's procrastinating and not letting that spiral. Making sure to perform the ritual of going to the store to buy real food, cooking himself a good meal, and enjoying it while he eats. Of making sure he works out enough. Sleeps enough. Paying attention to when something is making him feel bad or isn't fun anymore. Starting the day with small wins in order to build momentum to bigger ones. Getting in a routine where he makes art -- improvising songs on Twitch inspired by the video game he's playing.
Thinking about those things has been helping me, I think. Walking, cooking, calling friends and family regularly, keeping this blog, roller skating, writing, planning out my week (making sure to not overdo it) and then trying to stick to my schedule.
It's hard to see someone stuck. And to hear them ailing from some of the same complaints that have been going on for as long as I've known them.
BLog time!
**SPOILERS**
Published: 1934
Read: 3/2021
Lord Peter Wimsey’s car breaks down on New Years Eve in the village of Fenchurch St. Paul. He and Bunter are picked up by the rector of the church. Wimsey steps in to be a bell ringer as a flu has hit the town, and one of the bell ringers is out sick. He helps with the nine-hour peel that is to ring in the new year. The flu is a doozy, first striking down a woman in the village who’s husband is an invalid. He dies too some months later. When they open up the grave to put his coffin next to hers they find an unidentified dead body. There’s a back story about how years ago some emeralds were stolen and never recovered. The death involves those old missing emeralds. The case stalls out when Wimsey and the constable catch out the men involved but realize that each thought the other actually did the murder. What’s more, they can’t figure out what the man died of. The book ends with the sluice gates failing and the town rallying around the church preparing for the flood. Wimsey climbs the bell tower while the bells are ringing the alarm and almost doesn’t make it out again. The dead man had been tied up in the bell chamber during the nine-hour peel. It was the ringing of the bells that killed him.
I’m not sure if I had heard a dramatization of this book before. As soon as Sayers started talking about the nine-hour peel, I figured there was someone up in the bell chamber. (She notes that the trap door to it was locked.) The last third of the book goes on about how they don’t know who killed the man or how he died, and it’s fairly obvious that it was the noise and clamor of the bells. There were lots of funny part to this book – not large comedic sections or anything, just good little turns of phrase that made me laugh. Also, Sayers gives a decent amount of information on English bell ringing – it was my favorite part. Maybe when Mitch and I go to the UK we can check out a country parish church or even hear a bell ringing. I’d definitely appreciate it more now. Ian Carmichael read the audio book, and he did a great job interpreting the ding bang bong, etc. As well as giving the number sequences (indicating the bell ringing progression) all different pitches, approximating what the peel would sound like. Always worth it to read a Sayers novel, but Gaudy Night was considerably better than this one.
Rating: ★★
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