We had the silliest weather, sortof since May. For weeks and weeks on end it seemed that our weather has taken on a new pattern entirely: where it would be inconveniently raining for one week; and then we would have a single day of glorious sunshine. We had some uncharacteristically severe weather as well: some great thunderstorms.
Back in the Old Country we had glorious thunderstorms in the summer. The skies would have drastic, dark clouds, so black they turned the day into night. Ferocious cracks of lightning, accompanied by roaring thunder. After the flashes we used to count how many seconds it took for the sound of the lightning to arrive, trying to estimate how many kilometres away it struck. To recall the smell of rain stirring up the dry, sandy dust that seems to make up the entirety of my home town, is still something that gives me a sense of great calm. I loved those great summer storms.
But, sadly, none of that here, well, at least most of the time - as I said we had some unusual weather. But while it did have some drastic episodes, it was mostly just the dull grays mixed with annoying precipitation—just enough to "keep work at bay", as we often say at home.
What this dull weather did yield, however, was a tremendous upshot of weeds in our garden. The garden has been a challenge ever since we moved in here—the previous tenant was an elderly priest who, by the end, had no energy to invest into "outside", and the little burn we live next to started to take over the garden. Ivy bushes grew about 8 foot tall and entirely destroyed the fence. Then there were the raspberries and wild brambles, and the nettles... Fortunately no Japanese knotweed,
=> but about everything else under the sun sprouted here.
So the silly weather gave us a lot of growth, but "of the wrong kind". After all, a weed is only a plant that grows in the wrong place. But then I really do struggle to see what the "right place" would be for all the hogweed and thistle. There was such a variety of weeds I even subscribed to "PictureThis", ¹ the plant identifying app, which I remain impressed by. That told me we have, among others, the following:
Among these it was the barley that The Bairn discovered to be growing along the footpath that I found most interesting: clearly something that came from bird droppings. And I was, in a way, proud of the bitter dock. Its presence indicates a very fertile soil, rich in nitrogen. So you know, the garden might be impenetrable, but at least I can be certain that I have GREAT soil.
=> Growth | And some more growth
Symbolic, that is, it is both what it is, and more. It IS gardening, but it's also not gardening. That the state of the garden was such as it was, is a result of the inner dull and gray weather.
One of the key symptoms of the anxiety and depression I have been battling over the last 2 years or so is that the self-motivating faculties are injured. They just don't work. And so the gray, dull weather on the outside was paralleled by some dull, gray weather on the inside; and just as the weeds overtook what is fertile ground, so did depression take root and has been proving to eradicate.
More than a year I have been at it. There were definite ups and definite lows. But it's mostly a question of getting over some of the causes; but meanwhile managing the symptoms. A fine line to walk, two feats in parallel. Of course, there are days when symptom management has to take the front seat, and on others, when they are kept at bay, one can do a bit of work on the causes.
In theory, at least. Just like the constant drizzle kept gardening work at bay, so the incessant nonsense that I have been experiencing in ministry - mostly a fault of the failing institution that is our Diocese - has been preventing the inner tidy-up. When there is always some fresh hell, when there is always another unkept promise, another neglectful episode, you keep encountering what climbers call "false peaks": when a smaller peak is hiding the real summit, and, having invested all your energy into the climb, you discover that there is still way too much ahead that you didn't even know about, but you now have the added bonus of also being utterly exhausted. ²
As we seem to have moved out of the dull gray weather, so it seems that I seem to have made some progress in getting over the torpor of depression. I wouldn't claim I am out of it fully just yet. But it's been a few weeks now and I have manageqd to say "screw it" to more things. It's not that there are fewer external pressures. I am simply allowing myself to not care, and, at least for a little time, giving myself the space for recovery. I think I earned it, too: for weeks I didn't even take a day off. The weeds of anxiety have grown way over my head, and so it was time to take some powertools to them. Just like outside.
So having armed myself with a healthy dose of Fukitol 300mg ³, I bought a Li-Po powered hedge trimmer from B&Q, charged it, and set to it. The 7-8-foot nettles started to fall, sometimes stinging me in the process - I should not have opted for "taps aff"⁴ when there are thorny plants involved, but it was warm.
=> Halfway there | And done
It was a good kind of exhaustion, and with the trimmer I made much quicker progress than before. For the first attempt I just piled it all up on the footpath, and let it dry for a day, so that it wouldn't be as heavy to clear the following day.
=> A BIG pile | A different view
The following day I grabbed a pitchfork and "put the forest back with the rest of the forest,"⁵ then carried on with the back garden, which was a task about 4x as large. Or so it seemed at first. But I was much quicker with the trimmer by this time, and it proved actually less dense than before. Not to mention that the Parish literally forbade me (OK, not quite forbade, but told me not to) to trim the very back of the garden, because that ought to be the next door school's responsibility. Never going to be a problem to do less work!
=> Attacking the 7-foot nettles
And this coincided with a lot of inner clean-up. Some weeks back I was running late from sparring. The coach, half-jokingly, asked, "Where is your discipline?" --- to which I could only respond with an apology. But it did make me think: where IS my discipline? Just where did it go? It seemed to summarise a lot of my problems. The same week my strength coach wanted to not quite cut me loose, but said he's not sure I am getting anything out of the programme, and said he doesn't want to take my money if I am not able to do the programme. Stress, depression, and very silly working patterns simply kept me from the gym. But this also had me realise just how deep the hole I am in proves to be: even having the programme in place, even if I am not doing it, feels really important. The analogy came to mind is, trying to climb out of a sandpit while they are also pouring water in every now and then. The programme is like the ladder, and while sometimes I might slip off and have to start again, or maybe I am not making as good progress as I had hoped climbing, if we take the ladder away as well, I truly have no means of escape.
These two comments seem to have triggered something, however. They served as moments of truth and clarity, and I suddenly realised that I need to take much, much smaller steps. Instead of wanting to recover everything at the same time, to take back all those elements of my life that depression took, I will have to simply gradually build back; even if the steps are so small they feel positively stupid for them to have to be an "effort". But now I saw clearly just what exactly is growing in the "inner garden", how tall the weeds are, and that I need a change in methodology.
I was putting off the clearing in the back garden because I wanted to use the methodology I used last time: petrol strimmer; then when the first new shoots come up, treat with weed killer. For all its bad rep, my weapon of choice for spraying remains glyphosate—it's crazy efficient, but you do have to be VERY careful with it. It's very important to only use it after astrological sunset, because by then bees go to sleep, and you avoid the risk of spraying them — so mitigate the risks, avoid doing unneccessary damage. But the weather didn't allow me to use the methodology I wanted, just like depression wasn't allowing me to engage in the kind of recovery process I imagined.
So I needed a different way. I went and bought a LiPo battery hedge trimmer, as absolutely NOWHERE sells traditional scythes anymore. If I can't strim it becasue it's always too wet and it would just clog up the strimmer constantly, I can still cut it otherwise.
And as for the inner clean-up — instead of wanting to do it all at once, I chose to focus on one thing that I knew to work well in recovery, and that is sports. So I asked the coach if I could go along with him to do a strength training session together, which broke the ice, and I found myself feeling amazing after. I chose three small adaptations to life: more sensible bedtime and stick to it; have breakfast each day; and, for the strength programme, just weigh in every day.
The first day I attacked the 8-foot-tall nettles in the corner of the front garden. It was hot, and so I chose to work without a shirt off — and of course I ended up felling some of the "nettle-trees" in ways that I ended up stung, but in all honesty, I did not mind it at all. This bit proved to be the densest. As I wrote above, this was fertile ground; the bitter docks loved it. So it was no wonder the weeds were so thick. Then the back: this went much quicker.
=> The cleared back garden | I kept this 8-foot-tall cow parsley: it grew taller than me, it deserved to live.
And on the inner gardening front: my therapist often speaks of the four-legged "mental health coffee table": exercise, nutrition, sleep, social contact. Fortunately, boxing provides (and requires!) all these, and so by making it the focus, I managed to balance out all things much better. And I am also feeling like I am taking care of myself; it is only in hindsight that I realise how neglectful (a form of abuse!) it was of me to force myself to work until late, then leave on an empty stomach, prioritising real or imagined demands over my own, most basic needs.
About two weeks passed now since, and the garden is still clear, however I do notice some fresh growth cropping up. But now that the "heavy work" was taken care of, these are much easier managed—and I could even managed them with the "old" methodology, because it is at a managable stage.
And similarly, there are still days when I fail with the bedtime, or skip the weigh-in, or end up eating too much rubbish. But it is no longer systematic: these growths are quickly cut down again through stubbornly sticking to healthy routines.
So with that, I am now off to do some strength training, and then, I'm going to strim the fresh growth in the back, before we move out for a few months' time as neccessary repairs will finally take place.
———
=> ¹ PictureThis Plant Identifier App | ² A little cartoon to illustrate false peaks | ³ Fukitol | ⁴ Taps Aff Weather | ⁵ "I'll just put this over here with the rest of the fire" This content has been proxied by September (3851b).Proxy Information
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