Healing Through Music

I wasn't going to post this at all, and then I realized that that flies in the face of what I've been trying to do for the past nine years -- break the silence and end the stigma around depression.

So here goes. My depression is back. Maybe only for a short stay. Maybe not. It's been here a week now. A devastating sadness -- "best friend died" sort of sadness. And nothing of the sort is going on in my life. My life is amazing right now, with more exciting things to come. And yet, my brain sometimes does its own thing.

I'm doing things that I find helpful and comforting in a depression, and I'm also limiting the things that lead to overwhelm. One of the things I've done is compiled a list -- in a specific order -- of music. My "Feel Better" playlist. And I thought I'd share an annotated version with you today, in case anyone else finds it helpful.

These songs are intentionally in this order, to be played straight through. I created it to form an arc, to start from where I often am, and gradually lead myself to a more powerful place.

1.      “Crossroads” by Don MacLean
“Can you remember who I was/ can you feel it?/ Can you find my pain?/ Can you heal it?”

2.      “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan
“There's always some reason/ To feel not good enough/ And it's hard, at the end of the day”

3.      “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M
“If you feel like letting go/ If you think you've had too much/ Of this life, well hang on”

4.      “Try” by P!nk
“You gotta get up and try, and try, and try”

5.      “Show Me the Way” by Styx
“Give me the strength and the courage/ To believe that I'll get there someday/ And please show me the way”

6.      “Crawl” by Thisway
“Faces I remember, I'll still see/ And places in a memory, hold on to me/ I can't wait to crawl out of my shell”

7.      “Making It Up As I Go Along” by Marie Wilson
“Don't want to be scared/ Don't want to be weak/ Don't want to be the last to speak/ I'm gonna be brave/ I'm gonna be strong/ I'm ready to take it all on/ Making it up as I go along”

8.      “Brave” by Sara Bareilles
“Don't run, stop holding your tongue/ Maybe there's a way out of the cage where you live/ Maybe one of these days you can let the light in/ Show me how big your brave is/ Say what you wanna say/ And let the words fall out/ Honestly I wanna see you be brave”

9.      “Come to Life” by Trent Dabbs
“Let it breathe/ It will be alright/ There's gold in the ground where we're walking tonight/ Just sit back/ And watch it come to life”

10.   “Perfect” (Clean) by P!nk
“Pretty, pretty please/ if you ever, ever feel/ Like you're nothing/ you are perfect to me”

11.   “With Your Face to the Wind” by Peter, Paul & Mary
“Sometimes it takes the dark to let us see the light/ You can't have that victory unless you've fought the fight/ Sometimes it takes a winding road to lead us home/ While you're windin' 'round my friend just don't go windin' 'round alone”

12.   “Home” by Phillip Phillps
“Settle down, it'll all be clear/ Don't pay no mind to the demons/ They fill you with fear/ The trouble it might drag you down/ If you get lost, you can always be found/ Just know you're not alone/ 'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home”

13.   “I’ve Gotta Be Me” by Sammy Davis, Jr. (Cover by Ryan Tedder & Contraband; Lyrics by Walter Marks) 
“I want to live, not merely survive/ And I won't give up this dream/ Of life that keeps me alive/ I gotta be me, I gotta be me/ The dream that I see makes me what I am”

14.   “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars
“And when you smile/ The whole world stops and stares for a while/ 'Cause girl, you're amazing/ Just the way you are”

15.   “My Way” by Frank Sinatra
“To think I did all that/ And may I say - not in a shy way/ Oh no, oh no, not me/ I did it my way”

Writing to Music

Writing to music helps the words flow, I've found, and eliminates the echoes of badly written sentences bouncing around in my head. The trick, however, is finding the right music.

Or perhaps the write music.

Today is a major writing day. I'm in the final major conflict scene and I'm resisting it because someone gets hurt in this one. Rather badly. I don't want to do that, but it's necessary. I've assured him he'll heal.

So the music I've chosen to write to is:

Backdraft: Soundrack
by Hans Zimmer

Shepherd Moons
by Enya

Broken Arrow: Soundtrack
by Hans Zimmer

Symphony No. 6
by Beethoven

Lifescapes: Relaxation for Women
by Amy Hayashi-Jones

Jewish Blogging

Quick writing note: I'm not done yet (I know, I know, what is taking me so long?), but progress is being made. How's that for the use of passive verbs?

But first an intermission (what I like to also refer to as PROCRASTINATION).

I got my figurative nose out of my figurative book long enough to see what else was going on in the J-Blogosphere and came across JBlog Awareness Month from JBlogosphere:

"What I'm hoping for, is that people will recognize this new project by upping the amount of Jblog roundups they do, especially to blogs that they are just finding for the first time. Try to include one new blog, or one blog you never read before in your links."

I love it! Count me in.

Blogs I come across that I enjoy reading, either regularly or occassionally are in my blogroll (see right). But for new ones, I'll start with one I just found today that I'm really, really excited about:

One of my favorite musicians is Noah Budin. I heard him perform at a CAJE conference some years ago when I was still teaching and I was just mesmerized. He's the only singer/songwriter I've found so far who can do an authentic Jewish "gospel" with his song Joshua's Band from the album Hallelujah Land. (I hope that Real Audio link works for you; I couldn't get it to work for me. But it comes from this page at JewishStore.com.) He's an incredibly down-to-earth kind of guy, and an awesome musician. And, he answers fan mail! (I know from experience.)

His blog for his NEW CD (WOOHOO!!!) called Metaphor is here:

http://noahsmetaphor.blogspot.com/

***

Another J-blogger and fellow novelist is marallyn ben moshe, whose blog I wouldn't have found had she not left a comment for me on the previous post. Her blog is at:

http://shalomfromjerusalem.blogspot.com/

Thanks Marallyn! And good luck with Emma Shelby is No More!

BTW, I love hearing from other Jewish writers, especially fiction writers. Keep 'em coming!

***

Along those lines, I just recently came across Seraphic Secret (Seraphic Press) and I can't help but encourage you to help support another independent Jewish publisher. We need all the support we can get, and while Seraphic Secret is probably a much more well known blog than mine, if you haven't checked it out, please do so.

***

Some of you may know about this one; I've put links up before, but on the heels of talking about Jewish fiction, I have to again promote Storytellers at this blog:

http://elstersstorytellers.blogspot.com/

This is an awesome idea - a forum for beginning, amateur, and professional storytellers (such as us writers) to share short stories for the fun of it. There's some serious talent here (and no, that's not a self promotion).

***

There are some other new blogs I've run across, from the informative to the poignant, and I mean nothing negative by not listing them here. Mostly I'm not because they've been listed elsewhere, on blogs much more popular than mine, and also because it's already nine o'clock at night and I have an hour before I need to start thinking about bedtime. Which means only an hour of writing. (Priorities, I know...)

One note I will make. I read a brief bit of one blog about a woman dealing with depression, and the part that struck me was that she said she was falling through the cracks with regard to her rabbi's attention (or lack thereof) and she was letting it happen because to make herself seen was too painful.

That just made me angry. Not at her, but at the situation. HELLO-O! What does it say about us as a community that we've got people clearly needing help who are willing to disappear because disappearing hurts less than getting the Jewish help they need?

If David (my protagonist rabbi) ever did something like that (not noticing someone needing help), I think I'd smack him upside the head. Fictionally, of course. No violence being promoted on this blog. But it makes me feel helpless that I keep hearing about people feeling hurt or ignored by their rabbis (this is NOT the first sort of story like this that I've heard, and I've blogged a bit about this before) and there is not a single thing I can do about it.

Except maybe work it into a subplot and hope that I can get the message out to/through my readers.

Having a disability myself (no, you don't need any more details than that), and with the incredibly difficult uphill struggle to get my community to even notice Jewish books being written and published here, to say nothing of supporting it, I can only imagine how hard it must be to have your whole self go unnoticed, and not just your work.

So... any rabbis reading this (it can't hurt to hope, right?), or anyone who can influence their rabbis, if you're paying attention to who might need help and isn't asking for it, good. Thank you.

And if, as in my experience, you're noticing the squeaky wheels and not the silences, please pay more attention to who's at risk and not reaching out. I know you're busy. Believe me, I know better than many. (I've lost count of how many rabbis I've interviewed now... a few dozen?)

But ask yourself this: who's withdrawing? Who's not looking you in the eye? Who says they're fine but you think maybe they aren't? Those are the people you need to pay attention to. Please.

Okay, rant over. Just had to get that off my chest.

And now I have to get David and friends out of a sticky situation involving, of all things, crime scene tape and a synagogue window riddled with bullet holes.

Just a shameless plug there...

Dancing Distraction

So I was just checking comments over on Shira's post about Israeli folk dancing and was doing some research on probably my most favorite of Israeli folk dances - Jama'a BaMidbar. It all got me very nostalgic because I haven't been able to attend our weekly local (and baruch HaShem we HAVE it!) Israeli folk dance class since I was pregnant with Oldest Son, who just turned six.

That means it's been close to seven years (!) since I was a regular participant.

Sniff.

I dug out my tape of my favorite dance songs and listened to it, trying with only limited success to remember all the dance steps. As much as I absolutely LOVE Jama'a, I can only remember a few of the steps, which is not good because the dance has some twelve different parts plus a recurring "chorus."

And I am so sadly out of shape that by the end of the tape, I was wheezing. Of course, I do have a head/chest cold, so maybe this wasn't the most intelligent choice I could have made.

I do think I'm overdue for a return to dance class. We'll see if I can work it out.

But I thought I'd share with you the favorite songs I have on this custom tape:

1. Zodiak (Zodiac)
2. Jama'a BaMidbar
3. Od Yavo (Shalom Aleinu) / Od Yavo'u
4. Kol Ma Shekadam
5. Halevay
6. Neshikat Turkit
7. Shir
8. Tzadik Katamar
9. Zemer Atik

If I can just remember the steps to them all...

Interconnected

Here's something I know: my love of music, my connection with my own spirituality, my almost physical longing for ritual and religious activities, and that creative spark that fires up my writing are all connected.

When one disappears, for whatever reason, the others are sure to follow no matter how much I want them to stick around. And when that smoldering ember suddenly explodes into white-hot passion, for reasons I’m still unclear about, I know the others will return, too.

The question for me seems to be how to get a more moderate but consistent burning, rather than the simmering coal suddenly becoming a blazing inferno. And is that even what I want or what’s best for me?

I’ve had a number of spiritual famines, where I go through the motions – or occasionally I don’t – and I wonder if it matters. If any of it matters. I’ve also had just the opposite, where davening brings me to tears, learning Torah evokes such a longing that it’s physically painful yet wonderful at the same time, and I wonder if any of us (myself included) have even the slightest clue just how incredibly lucky we are to have the abundance and intensity of opportunities that we do to approach the Divine.

I’ve just recently come out of one of those famines, a place of desolate frustration and aloneness, where every attempt to move forward has me banging my head against a prison wall. The past few months have seen some very nice things happen business-wise, and the publisher side of me is very pleased. But the creative writer, the musical mystic, the collaborative that forms my Jewish soul was unfulfilled and in danger of stagnation.

How to flip that switch, light the flame, stir the creative passions, I still haven’t figured out yet. It’s not something I can do at will right now. Rather, it’s something that I simply must accept as it happens, and then find a way to turn acceptance into joy, trusting that there is always an end to the famine and a way out on the other side.

It’s no wonder, then, that I’m throwing myself into the things I love: writing, music, prayer, study, and that my children are picking up on it, too. Oldest Son (almost 6) is excited about bentching before we even start a meal and asks to daven with me in the morning. He’s even willing to give up PBS Kids for twenty minutes of prayer. Youngest Son (3-1/2) isn’t willing to go that far, but he’s recently decided – on his own – to wear a kippah all the (day) time and say b’rachot for everything he eats. Everything.

How truly fortunate we are to have the opportunity for such a relationship with G-d. No intermediaries, no prerequisites, no tests of worthiness. Just show up and do your best.

I’m trying.