Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [56]
I never managed to banish my depressions into U.S. mists, nor did I wear them as an English cloak. But over the years I had grown to recognize them, even to categorize them by type and color. My first Thanksgiving morning after coming to Seattle, I found myself enmeshed in Depression 24693J, otherwise known as “I Want to Be a Prom Queen.” Its general theme was this: Everyone I know has been invited to exciting parties. I have been invited to none, and those to which I have been invited are not nearly as exciting as those to which I haven’t been invited. What’s wrong with me? (It should be noted that Depression 24693J, like all depressions of inadequacy, has no relationship to fact; one could be exhausted running between invites from Aung San Suu Kyi, Noam Chomsky, and the Dalai Lama and still slide comfortably into Depression 24693J.)
Depression 24693J was interrupted by a call from my mother. I was to meet her and her husband in Pioneer Square for lunch before we all went to different Thanksgiving dinners.
I caught the ferry in the pouring rain. My mother, her husband, and I wandered rain-soaked Seattle streets looking for a restaurant. We finally settled on the only place open, a comfortable old bar. I looked at the other patrons also there on this national holiday. A young couple sat holding hands over neglected mashed potatoes and turkey. An older man across the room shared his table with a large stuffed teddy bear. The bear sat in his own chair and wore an overcoat. On the back of the bear’s chair hung his umbrella.
On the ferry trip back to the island, I wondered whether Depression 24693J—which, as was his habit, departed without saying goodbye—was not loneliness in disguise. And what is loneliness? A friend described it as a lack of purpose. Another person suggested it comes when we feel disconnected. It certainly has nothing to do with being solitary: I thought of the excruciating loneliness that comes only in the crowded room of a party, or the liberating completeness of sharing a windy beach with only the sky and annoyed-looking cormorants. What about the loneliness I felt while I lay in bed in Salvador, listening to the night bar music and never finding sleep?
Arriving home a few nights later, after another one of my walks, I recognized the greeting handshake of Depression 81572P, better known as “I Could Have Been President.” Its theme: everything I try takes an incredible amount of time, and the results are mediocre. Everyone else seems able to do things much faster, and their results—which I could have thought up just as well—are acclaimed as brilliant. What’s wrong with me?
“You know something?” I said to Depression 81572P when I entered my house and saw him darkening a corner of my couch. “I don’t like your style. You are a selfish, low-grade depression. And besides that, you’re boring.” And I sat on him.
Beside the couch on a small table stood the statue Agnaldo had given me. Above it hung the painting of Iemanjá. I took from my neck the turquoise beads I wore and curled them around the base of the statue. I lit a candle.
Then I sat down, picked up the telephone, and called Rita. She had recently acquired a cell phone, much cheaper to set up in Salvador than a land line. It didn’t work most of the time, but to my amazement, the connection went through this time and she answered.
“You know that idea of a nonprofit,” I said. “How we talked about an infrastructure, a group that would really work?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s do it.”
Rita laughed.