Depression Prevention Kit by Red Eft

Yesterday, as we ambled along a rail trail next to a mossy cliff
dripping with melting ice, I told my son, "I need to be someplace I’ve
never been about once a week, or eventually I get into a funk."

Winter is long.  Here’s what I do to beat the blues.

1.  As per above, go somewhere you’ve never been, once a week.  At least.

2.  Take a good Vitamin B complex.  Surprisingly effective.

3.
Don’t ingest news outside of a context that allows you to spit
something back, or disempowerment is always battering at you. I like to
get news from Progressive Secretary letters; all I do is click SEND and I’m complaining to my senators.

4.  Aerobic exercise three times a week, some light yoga a couple of times.

5.  Meditate daily, even if only for 10 minutes.

6.  Get outside every day.

7.  Don’t eat wheat or dairy.  Keep alcohol & caffeine to a minimum. And sugar.

8.  Do something nice for somebody else at least three times/week.

9.  Get lots of sleep.

10.  Don’t go more than a couple of days without writing, drawing, making music, pretending, whatever.

12.  Don’t watch TV.  At.  All.  A movie once in a while is OK, but see that it isn’t a non-redemptive bummer movie like House of Sand and Fog.

13.  In the stressful years since 9/11, I have found these healing modalities to be extremely powerful: Energy work with a Barbara Brennan practitioner, Maitri Breathwork, Craniosacral Therapy.

14.  Keep a little statue of Ganesh.  Powerful fellow!

15.
Listen to dreams, (you knew red eft would say that!) Here’s a good
blues-fighting idea from a dream I had (a woman was speaking to me):

"Imagine
a necklace of fireflies around your neck, each able to transform your
utterances. They remind you that you are light, divine. They protect
you from thinking negative thoughts, saying negative things."

Finally,
if someone is clinically depressed, try not to give them advice or come
up with silly lists of things they can do to turn things around, it’s
very annoy

Ecstatic February by OTBKB

The Gates are one of the best things to ever happen to New York in February.

February: it may be the shortest month, but it slogs on and on.
There’s usually ice, slush or snow on the sidewalks, bitter winter
temperature and face slapping winds. The last few Februarys have seen
city-stopping blizzards that have wreaked havoc on hectic lives.

Years back, when I was experiencing a depressing February, this
song by Dar Williams was on repeat on the CD player in the living room.
Maybe that was part of the problem. But it seemed to express so well
the hopelessness and listlessness of this deep-winter month.

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, "Thats a crocus,"
And I said, "Whats a crocus?" and you said, "Its a flower,"
I tried to remember, but I said, "Whats a flower?"
You said, "I still love you."

But this year the color orange seems to be everywhere. Hats. Pants,
Coats, Gloves. And of course, throughout Central Park, orange curtains
are blowing in the wind. The fabric dances and changes color from
orange to saffron to deep yellow in the sun. Enhanced by these bright
orange structures, we see our mighty park through a new frame.

The Gates are an elixir for the mid-winter doldurms, that spiritual
abyss that usually sets in this time of year when everyone is sick of
their down filled coats and hearts are yearning for chirping birds and
the buds of spring.

This city is just so excited about this monumental pick-me-up.
People are throwing parties, taking walks, meeting friends in the park.
A friend threw a viewing party in her Central Park West apartment with
its park-facing windows. An aunt of mine doesn’t even live near the
park, but she invited friends over for coffee and a group pilgrammage
to The Gates.

These events are like Superbowl parties for the Christo-crazed.

What happens to New Yorkers when they are ecstatic in February?
Nobody really knows. It’s never happened before: this is an experiment
in the transformative powers of art. We don’t even recognize ourselves.
Eyes open wide, promenading through The Gates in cold and fair weather,
we’re connecting with all of our senses.

What happens to New Yorkers when they are ecstatic in February?

They swoon. And the world swoons with them.

_NO WORDS_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford

_POSTCARD FROM THE SLOPE_Say Cheese

_SCOOP DU JOUR_Weather. News. Stuff to do.

_BROOKLYN THINKERS_Ecstatic February by OTBKN

Ecstatic February by OTBKB

The Gates are one of the best things to ever happen to New York in February.

February: it may be the shortest month, but it slogs on and on. There’s usually ice, slush or snow on the sidewalks, bitter winter temperature and face slapping winds. The last few Februarys have seen city-stopping blizzards that have wreaked havoc on hectic lives.

Years back, when Smartmom was enduring a depressing February, this song by Dar Williams was on repeat on the CD player in the living room. Maybe that was part of the problem. But it seemed to express so well the hopelessness and listlessness of this deep-winter month.

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together.
You stopped and pointed and you said, "Thats a crocus,"
And I said, "Whats a crocus?" and you said, "Its a flower,"
I tried to remember, but I said, "Whats a flower?"
You said, "I still love you."

But this year the color orange seems to be everywhere. Hats. Pants, Coats, Gloves. And of course, throughout Central Park, orange curtains are blowing in the wind. The fabric dances and changes color from orange to saffron to deep yellow in the sun. Enhanced by these bright orange structures, we see our mighty park through a new frame.

The Gates are an elixir for the mid-winter doldurms, that spiritual abyss that usually sets in this time of year when everyone is sick of their down filled coats and hearts are yearning for chirping birds and the buds of spring.

This city is just so excited about this monumental pick-me-up. People are throwing parties, taking walks, meeting friends in the park. A friend threw a viewing party in her Central Park West apartment with its park-facing windows. An aunt of mine doesn’t even live near the park, but she invited friends over for coffee and a group pilgrammage to The Gates.

These events are like Superbowl parties for the Christo-crazed.

What happens to New Yorkers when they are ecstatic in February? Nobody really knows. It’s never happened before: this is an experiment in the transformative powers of art. We don’t even recognize ourselves. Eyes open wide, promenading through The Gates in cold and fair weather, we’re connecting with all of our senses.

What happens to New Yorkers when they are ecstatic in February?

They swoon. And the world swoons with them.

_No Words_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford

_Postcard from the Slope_Surprise

_Scoop Du Jour_Weather.News. Stuff to do.
with a special Valentine’s Day treat

_Brooklyn Thinkers_Orange Curtains by OTBKB

_Brooklyn Thinkers_Makin’ Valentines by Elswhere

Just Mad About Saffron by OTBKB

We journeyed to Central Park yesterday to see
The Gates. At the entrance at 59th Street and Sixth Avenue,
orange curtains were billowing in the breeze. We walked underneath our first few gates and were swept into the intstant joy of Christo
and Jeanne-Claude’s happening.

The
Gates are everywhere: surrounding the Sheeps Meadow, in
front of the Arsenal at the Zoo, by the frozen lake, in the mall
leading to the Bethesda Fountain. We only got as far as 72nd
Street and there is plenty more to see. There are 7500 of them in all and they fascinate from a distance as
well as up close.

While I was watching my daredevil daughter climb some
rocks, I overheard an "erudite" English woman talking to some
friends. Well dressed and middle-aged, she might have been a professor or an intellectual wanna-be. Hell, she might have been "the real thing.

"Do you think each gate works individually or does it only
work in repetition?" she asked her group.

"Personally, they do
nothing for me," she continued. "It’s really just O.C.D. Art of the
obscesssive compulsive. Much writing is like that, too. Tolkien for
example. ‘The Hobbit’ with all its endless details, it’s really more of
a disability than a work of art."

I wanted to shake this
woman upside down. But I just continued to eavesdrop some more: "Well I guess you
have to call it a sucess. They built it. Thousands of people came.
That’s an accomplishment in itself I guess," she said.

I really wanted to say: "Lady, get out of your head. Walk around. Stand
underneath one of the curtains or on that god damn rock and look at the
view. Notice the way the light hits each gate differently. Experience
the exhilaration of being here. Thank Christo and Jeanne Claude for
this exuberant and experiential gift to New York."

Some people just can’t get out of their own way.

Valentine’s Day Countdown by Elswhere

Late January:
Briefly consider creating homemade valentines with Mermaid Girl: red
cutout hearts, stickers, lacy doilies. Scrap idea after looking at
packed calendar and considering MG’s attention span and fine-motor
development; just writing names on prepackaged cards will be enough of
a project.

February 2, early evening: On a
pre-dinner trip to Fred Meyers, drop MG at playroom and scour the
Seasonal aisle for acceptable valentines. Push past towering piles of
Sc00by Doo, Disn3y Pr1incess, Sp1derman, assorted saccharine-sweet
themes, and seemingly endless varieties of Br4tz cards (3D hologram,
tattoo, naked–hah! just kidding!) to find one box of Eye Spy and one
relatively inoffensive set of He11o K1tty. Swing back to playroom and
present both boxes to MG for her choice. Surprise! (not) She chooses
Kitty. I briefly consider buying Eye Spy as well, just for backup, but
figure there are plenty of cards in just the one box.

February 2, after dinner:
Much excitement about the valentines. With our help, MG
enthusiastically compiles a list of everyone she wants to give them to:
friends from school, closest friends outside of school, baby cousin,
grandparents, Little Latke. I write up the list in block letters so she
can use it to write each recipient’s name herself. I perforate the
sheets and she sorts through the individual cards, cooing over all the
cute little pastel kitty designs and insisting on taking one to keep
for herself. No problem; there are 32 cards. We are rich in cards! And
in time. There’s more than a week to work on them. For once, we planned
ahead! We’re so good.

February 3-12: Valentines? What valentines? We have busy lives, you know.

February 13:

4 PM: RW and Mermaid Girl are out at a friend’s. I remember the valentines, then think, Well, she can work on them tonight.

5:45 PM:
I’m on the other phone with a friend when RW calls: they’re invited to
stay for dinner, do I mind? No, no, of course not, go ahead.

6:00 PM: Oh, sh*t! The valentines!

7:55 PM:
RW and Mermaid Girl return home. They’ve already thought about the
valentines: it’s no problem, MG will just write them while she eats her
dessert cookie.

8 PM: While MG engages in an
elaborate show of cookie-eating and milk-drinking, I read aloud an
abridged version of the list we came up with in the first heady flush
of planning: no grandparents, no cousins, just the school friends she
mentioned. We don’t have time to mess around. She chooses one friend. I
circle the name, help her figure out how to make the letters (it’s a
short name, thank goodness). She writes the name slowly and
painstakingly. She freezes when she gets to her own name: the pressure!
I make a dotted outline of the first letter for her–sometimes she gets
it backwards. I fold the card in half, she pulls a heart sticker off
the sheet to seal it, and we’re on to the next card. This will be just
fine.

8:15 PM: Three valentines down. First
crying meltdown of the evening, brought on when I absent-mindedly seal
one of the cards myself instead of letting MG do it. Fortunately, the
heart sticker comes off easily.

8:45 PM: Eight valentines down: "Write my name for me, Mommy! Please!" [curling up in my lap] "This is a lot of work for one little child!"

9:10 PM:
Thirteen valentines down. MG has a breakdown halfway through the
fourteenth. "You could stop, you know, you don’t have to do cards for
everyone," I say. "No!" she insists. "If he sees the other kids have
one, his feelings will be hurt!" We agree to take a short
sanity-restoring break while she puts on her pajamas.

9:15 PM:
RW and I try unsuccessfully to convince MG that she can stop after the
next card, since she doesn’t know most of the other kids that well. She
is affronted: "I know all the preschoolers!"

9:20 PM:
A pajama’ed Mermaid Girl and I come up with a plan: she will do one
more card in her own hand, for one of her best friends at school, and I
will address and sign the half-dozen others in her name after she tells
me who should get each one. Most of them are for younger kids who won’t
care as much who actually wrote them, anyway. And we’ll still have
plenty left to send belatedly to friends and relations.

9:30 PM:
With all cards addressed and signed by either Mermaid Girl or me, and
with RW on bedtime duty, I count up the completed valentines and
realize that the kids Mermaid Girl has listed constitute most of the
preschool, and that if only the few she didn’t mention are omitted they
may, in fact, feel bad. (The take-home folders are at adult height, so
it’s not like the kids would be looking through them. But still, if
almost everyone gets a valentine, the few who don’t might notice.)
Belatedly, I look through the preschool directory, and discover 10 kids
who were left off her list. With a sinking feeling in my gut, I count
the remaining He11o K1tty cards. There are eight left.

9:40 PM:
back at Fred Meyers, in the depleted Valentine’s aisle, which now
shares space with the newly-stocked Easter section. He11o Kitty is long
gone, as is Eye Spy. I survey the remaining boxes, muttering curses. A
giggly, carefree young couple in their mid-20’s swings by: she’s in the
cart, he’s pushing. They offer advice: "Well," she observes, "there’s
lots of Br4tz cards left." I shudder and make an involuntary noise.
"Yeah," she agrees. "I don’t like them either. They’re like little
prostitutes, aren’t they?"

10:10 PM: Mermaid
Girl is in bed. I show RW what I unearthed. We junk the sappy Pr3cious
Moments cards and go with the puppies-and-kittens themed box. I sort
the cards, looking for the vaguest, least-committing messages: "be
mine!" and "friends forever" cards don’t seem appropriate, considering
she doesn’t even know she’s giving these; I wouldn’t want to lead some
poor 3-year-old on…or am I being too literal?

10:30 PM:
Done. Valentines in a big envelope to take to MG’s school in the
morning. Leftover cards left on the table so we can continue the
torture tomorrow evening, with the belated cards for friends and
relations.

Elswhere and her partner, Renaissance Woman (RW),  live in Seattle with their 4-year-old daughter, Mermaid Girl. An honorary Brooklynite, she lived near the Gowanus projects back in 1989 and has been known to surf the PS 321 website just for kicks. This piece can also be found on her blog: Travels in Booland.

Who’s Your Daddy? by Elswhere

Travel tip of the day: everyone will be much happier in the car if you teach your kid to ask "Where are we?" instead of "Are we there yet?" Since "where are we?" is a question that can actually be answered ("We’re in Mount Vernon…we’re near the border…we’re stuck in traffic..") and the only answer to "Are we there yet?" is "No! No! NOOOOO! If we were there, would we still be driving???"

It’s one adventure after another around here these days. We zipped up to Vancouver yesterday and back this evening, and we’re all beat. Mermaid Girl got to see her Uncle Skaterboy, who always makes her completely giddy. For him, she pulls out all the stops, getting cuter and cuter and goofier and goofier until she collapses from sheer exhaustion.

Uncle Skaterboy is no relation to Cousin B. Actually, he’s not even Mermaid Girl’s uncle– he’s her bio-dad, and one of the Renaissance Woman’s oldest friends. I’ve noticed most people use the term "donor," but we started with "bio-dad" when MG was a wee thing; it seems to describe their relationship better. And Mermaid Girl likes it; we’ve overheard her, when some other kid comments that MG doesn’t have a dad, retorting, "I have a bio-dad." It seems to work for her.

In the beginning, the very very beginning, when Mermaid Girl was but a fetus, we refused to answer That Question. And people asked! You’d be surprised how many people we didn’t even know that well asked, or hinted. Or maybe you wouldn’t. We came up with stock answers. My favorite was, "Well, it’s not David Crosby." Renaissance Woman preferred to counter the query "Where’d you get that baby?" with a wide-eyed, "Heaven."

The second-parent adoption went through when Mermaid Girl was six weeks old, and after that we started to relax a little. Not that we’d ever worried that he, or his parents, would rush in with a custody claim, but somehow being legally declared a family took some of the pressure off. After a few months we told Skaterboy he could tell his parents. And were they ever thrilled.

We also told our parents, who had all guessed already, not being complete idiots. But we still had the foolish idea that we weren’t going to tell Mermaid Girl until she was older, three or so. I think we had this vision of sitting her down and having A Little Talk with her, wherein we would unveil the secrets of her genetic heritage, and she would gape in silent amazement, never having thought to wonder about it before.

Hah! Is all I can say. What on earth did we think we were going to do until then? Punt? Because Mermaid Girl has always been hyper-aware of family and social structures. And as she used to say proudly about herself, "No miss trick."

And the resemblances between Skaterboy and Mermaid Girl were obvious right from the start. For one thing? The guy never sleeps. He’s the only person I know who’s a morning person and a night person. When Mermaid Girl was a tiny baby, it became apparent that the truism about newborns dropping off anywhere they need to was just not true for her: the girl hated to miss a party, and would force herself to stay up if there was a chance of anything exciting going on, even at the cost of terrible meltdowns later. After a few weeks of this, RW called Skaterboy and said "This is all your fault!"

So one day when Mermaid Girl was about a year old and not really talking yet, she and RW were hanging out, nursing, and Mermaid Girl was flailing her legs around and hooking her feet over her shoulders and doing all this baby-gymnast stuff that she was wont to do. RW was used to talking to Mermaid Girl as if she couldn’t really understand anything (a mistake, as will soon be apparent), and murmured something like, "Well, it’s a good thing you got your athletic ability from your daddy and not from me."

Mermaid Girl stopped nursing, stared at RW, and said, "Dada?!?!"

"Uhhhh, yes," said RW, totally busted. "Uncle Skaterboy is your daddy. Sort of. Yup. Uh-huh."

We filled in the details a little later, after she could talk more and after we got a book from the library about all kinds of families.

We talked about how there are the parents you are born from, and the parents who take care of you, and sometimes those are different people, and they’re special to their kid in different ways. And how even though Uncle Skaterboy didn’t want to be a parent who took care of a kid all the time, he helped Mama to make Mermaid Girl, because she and I wanted to have a child together, and then after she was born I adopted her and now she had a mommy and a mama. "So, Uncle Skaterboy used to be my dad, but now he isn’t?" she asked, at two or so; not sad, just working it out.

Sort of, we said.

Once, before library story time, I was telling the friendly librarian that Mermaid Girl had a mommy and a mama. "And an Uncle Skaterboy!" she chimed in proudly.

She went through a period for a while where she used to ask RW to draw pictures of herself, RW, and Uncle Skaterboy and say that was her family. Sometimes, when pressed, she would put me (and Uncle Skaterboy’s partner) in the corners. Once she told us the sad story about how she and Mama would go live with Uncle Skaterboy, and I would be alone in the house, calling "Everyone come have dinner now!" and no one would come, I’d just be alone with the food.

I just couldn’t take it personally, because it had nothing to do with our actual daily life, with brushing teeth and picking up toys and reading stories and walking to the park. It was her working out the structure of things. And I knew that while Uncle Skaterboy loved (and loves) Mermaid Girl, loves having her picture on his fridge and showing her off to his friends in the West End and buying her clothes and teaching her to skate, he doesn’t want to be a full-time or even a part-time parent. And I do.

These days, Mermaid Girl can reel off the whole story, for us or anyone else she feels like telling: the speck Uncle Skaterboy gave Mama; the adoption; etc. etc. She loves to go up to Vancouver to see him, partly because he’s so glamorous and energetic and kid-friendly, and partly because she knows he’s so special to her. And while she sometimes seems a little sad that Uncle Skaterboy isn’t her "real" day-to-day dad, we’ve heard much more flack about our stubborn refusal to provide her with a little sibling (which is a story for another time).

Still, even though I’ve regained center-stage in her family pictures, Uncle Skaterboy has a unique place in her life. And I’m grateful to him, not only for making her existence possible, but for making that special place for her, too. They are lucky to have each other; I’ve seen how happy she makes him, and as she gets older, he’s going to be able to help her in ways that RW and I can’t. Her heart is big enough, and our family is big enough, to fit all of us.

Elswhere is another honorary Brooklynite. At one time she lived across from the Gowanus Projects and pined to live in Park Slope. "But I couldn’t afford it," she writes. "Not even in 1988." Elswhere now lives in Seattle with her partner (RW) and their toddler daughter, Mermaid Girl. This piece first appeared on Elswhere’s blog: Travels in Booland.

Light Sleeper by  Real Fruit Jelly

No dreams. But I am tightly grasping my earplugs when I wake up. I
meant to put them in my ears but must have fallen asleep before doing
so. I’ve been wearing earplugs to sleep for a few years now. My husband
S is a seasoned snorer. There was a time when I’d simply leave the
bedroom and go sleep on the couch when the "music" he was making became
too free-form for me. Then there was a period when I’d kick him out and
he’d seemingly sleepwalk to the livingroom and resume the kazoo
symphony out there. Sawing wood? This man would cut down a national
forest each and everynight. Eventually, I became so angry that I’d give
him a very hard "nudge" and loudly announce, "Roll over! You’re
snoring!" He would dutifully roll onto his side but soon would end up
on his back again letting loose like a sick trumpet. I started to have
fantasies about punching him in the head.

But that all ended when I discovered "Leight Sleepers." Ahhh, yes. Those little pink and yellow bullet shaped foam babies have
changed my life. Here’s what it says on the package: "Soft foam ear
plugs that help with sleeping, concentrating and studying. Noise
reduction rating 32 decibels, when used as directed. Contents: 5 pair
ear plugs, carrying case ". All that for $2.99! I don’t know how many
decibels my spouse’s snoring reaches on a bad night (it’s worst after a
couple of martinis) but clearly it has not exceded 32. At the very
least his tune is muffled. At the very most, God bless ’em, I
experience a gloriously peaceful… silence.

Now, where are my plugs?

Real Fruit Jelly is a graphic designer and art director with many magazine mastheads to her credit. She lives in Park Slope with her husband and daughter and is an unabashed fan of Bruce Springsteen. Her blog,  Sleeping Bunnies, is a daily record of her night life.