The art of "useful things"

I adore my landlady.  Aside from the fact she's very friendly, and has the ability to put up with a heck of a lot of eccentricities on the part of her renters (yes, me too), she's also a constant source of surprise.

Usually the surprise is "what's changed around the house this time?"

There have been a few days when I've come home from work, walked into the kitchen and stopped to take a careful look around because it was obvious that multiple things had shifted, which meant it was probably wise to try and figure out what else had moved.

This is mostly due to past experience (especially in the kitchen) when I would be cooking (usually partway through) and I'd open a cupboard to go for the usual pan, and whups, it's gone.  Same thing with with plastic containers, glass cookware, and veeery occasionally, sauces and spices.

The rest of the house has been slightly less middle-of-task-panic-inducing but still an education in not only how fast things can get shifted, but also in the sheer amount of places you can put little inspirational signs and gadgets to "make life easier".  Or just extra lights.

The reason I'm being spurred to writing about this is she recently got back from work after being gone for about three weeks.  When she's gone the house gets very quiet, and the dog is usually gone, so I can't get my doggo fix, which just makes things extra hard.  

Now, when I say 'recently' I mean she got back yesterday.  And the downstairs has already had a mini transformation.

When she left, most of the Hallowe'en stuff had been put away, but there were still a few things up. (the plastic bat skeleton is my faaaavourite, and I need one!) 

I got home maybe ten minutes after her, and by the time I walked through the door the bat and almost all of the other Halowe'en related paraphernalia had been vanished away somewhere, and there was a Christmas tree made of lights up.

Skip to the next day.  I was out from about 9:30 am to 2ish.  On my initial wander through the house to my room the obvious things were: the fact that the main floor seemed to have had a full cleaning, absolutely all of the Fall related things were down, an industrial light in need need of some work in the living room, and the addition of two fake snowmen to the mantelpiece.  Oh, and the light tree was gone.

And there was more.

By the end of the afternoon, I'd found several more snowmen or Santas scattered around the living room, new fireplace maintenance things, a new motion sensor light in the downstairs toilet, and a chocolate cake up for grabs in the kitchen.  This as all in about five, five and a half hours, and it's not including the stuff I know she was doing outside in the yard or moving the chickens.

I am absolutely positive I missed things, and I haven't even checked the upstairs toilet yet. 

Depression

I hate being depressed.  

I mean, I think it's fair to say that no one likes being depressed, and when I say "I hate it" I'm reiterating something many, many other people feel, but.  I'm saying it anyway.  I don't even know if it's gonna help at all, I just wanted to say it.

I have had it repeating intermittently in my head all day.

I didn't even really figure it out, my mum said I was depressed when I was talking to her on the phone, and it was a bit like a light bulb went off.  She was right, I am.  What I'm bumping into right now is the fact that I've only started getting a frame of reference for the "oh, this means I'm depressed" in the last six moths or so.

I (somehow) managed to go for 30 odd years without getting depressed, or at least depressed in a way I actually figured out what it was.  Then about three months or so ago I was depressed big time, in a way I found veeeery hard to miss.  The dissociative state (that's the only description that sounds vaguely clinical I got, I was going with 'fuzzy' the other day) was most of a day, but I managed to find something to pull up with in the afternoon.  The next day it was hard not to drift again, but I managed.  Again, somehow.  

This time I haven't dissociated.  At least not yet.  It's just...  Sad.  Like, I'm not feeling sad, it's kind of like a state of being.  There's no feeling of "what's the point?" like the first time, just (just, HA.)an all encompassing sense of "not happy" and a constant physical drag.  It's so damn hard to move.  I'm not usually this pessimistic either, so that's fun.  

I've been reading stuff about depression for literal decades, and I know people who have to deal with it regularly, so I'm probably lucky that I've seen so many lists on "things that help".  They are, in fact, surprisingly helpful.  I'm managing to get at least a few things done every day, haven't stopped planning for what next (which right now is super damn important.  Also a contributing factor for the depression)  And the getting outside in the brief (so fecking brief) window of daylight during the day.  I does help.

What's bothering me most right now is this sort of, under the skin itch that won't go away.  A creeping sense of irritability.  Everything is grating on it.  The music in the cafe is distracting instead of a quiet background noise.  the content of the music is turning into something that'll make me sneer instead of just going in one ear and out the other.  Quiet is equally disturbing.  Too quiet, not enough background, making me twitch.  I can't fecking win.  Not dissociative though, given the almost hair trigger weepyness I've been feeling for two days.  I guess that's good.

Oh, right.  And also?  My word skills, writing, everything, is out the damn window.  At this time I'm honestly not sure if this post will scan well, 'cause it's mostly been a stream of consciousness purge of thoughts and feeling.  But all my writing is doing that right now, which means any sort of plot, planning, or wondering is an absolute mess.  And the tension settling in everywhere doesn't help either.

God, I hate being depressed.

Poetical mood

I'm in a poetical mood today.

Maybe it's the weather.  Rain, but in that particular Highland way which looks like mist, drifting in the air, leaving a soft halo of diffuse light around the hills when the last of the sunlight glows briefly from behind the clouds.

I'm in a poetical mood today.

Perhaps it's the woods.  Damp leaves underfoot, half still on the trees and brilliant in shades of orange and yellow, with the distinctive soft smells of earth, rot, and the quiet chill hanging in the air while the crows come in to roost.

I'm in a poetical mood today.

It could be the time of year.  Partway through the seasonal shift from Autumn to Winter.  Cold is creeping in, the frost never entirely melts away, but the land is not -quite- asleep.  Still wakeful, still shifting, getting comfortable.  Blink and you'll miss it.

I'm in a poetical mood today.

Whatever it is, it's nice.  Soft.  Light.  Allows me to appreciate the light on the hills and the smell in the air.  The sounds of crows, and the sharp, muffled snap of half rotted twigs underfoot.  The silent brilliance of leaves on trees.

I don't want it to stop, to go back to worrying about work (or lack of it) and other people (there's always so much). I'd like to be able (to be allowed) to just drift in this.  To appreciate the beauty and revel in it. And then repeat that.

But the world turns, and so do I.  Time flows, and takes me with it.  Life, joy, moments both good and bad, all is fleeting.  

I take the gifts chance brings me and I'll sit and smile and revel while I can.

I'm in a poetical mood today.  It is a gift, and I am happy for it.

Haunting landscapes

Isn't it interesting how some landscapes creep into your senses, and just quietly take over?

It's not the gut punch of a gorgeous vista, that's something else, and can create a haunting all on its own.

It's not the pretty picturesque either.  Picturesque is almost fleeting in its impact despite the lovely pictures you can get.


No, the haunting ones. 

The one you don't notice until you're halfway through the drop and you can't stop the fall anymore. 

The ones you spend half the time dismissing until you look up and just catch that one moment of cloud, light, earth, and you just know if you go for a camera you'll have lost it.

The ones where you see the hills in the mist and you feel something, not sure what, but something creep up your spine to settle in your mind.

Those ones.

The ones that inspire a small book of poetry, that keep artists out at all hours and in all weathers, that seep into an authors brain and inspire chilling stories, epic adventures, and deep dives into the quirks of the human psyche.

Those ones.

The ones that are almost diaphanous in memory, yet have a grip on the mind you know will last.  The ones that are so hard to describe and explain.


A train through the Cairngorms at dusk.  Mist on the hills, creeping over the fields.  The last blush from the sun breaking through a few gaps in the clouds, and creating the strange glow of diffused sunlight that illuminates like nothing else does.

This one.

The Haunting ones.