HAMLET O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space -- were it not that I have bad dreams.
~ Shakespeare, William, Hamlet, Folio, (F 2.2.238-2.2.267), lines 16-18.
The Arden Shakespeare, p. 466, Cengage Learning, London, 2006.
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Depression comes with the change of seasons, from summer to autumn, or summer to winter in Chicago. With the change of season, I lose interest in spending time outside. Even taking trash out becomes a chore. My desire to go out and exercise morphs into exorcising my demons inside. Running along the Lakefront Trail becomes running the hamster wheel inside my head. I eat even less than one meal a day and think about dying and growing old. My libido left me decades ago when depression took over my body. My desire for children becomes hopeless as I look back on my best days to procreate with my ex-wife falling in love with a stroke patient her own age. Probably for the best. She thought I was insane because I left a sanatorium in California after I turned twenty-one. That was nearly twenty-nine years ago. At fifty years of age, I completed my fifth Chicago Marathon. Training for six months of the year is hell on earth for the body. Pain is something you get used to, since it's better than depression. But winter envelops my energy with inertia, tending towards full entropy living. Being introverted and reclusive as a hermit crab doesn't help at all. Born under the sign of Cancer, the Crab teaches my brain to think in a lateral direction, to solve kōans like, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Of course, it's a handbell, where the hinged clapper strikes inside the bell. But this brings up my bell clapper deformity that resulted in a torsion of my right testicle after I raced in Sunset League Finals for cross country runners my freshman year at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California, at fourteen. My friends said that I took one for the team, but I came in eighth place, where the top seven placed runners move on to State Championships. Probably for the best. But someone on my team could have run in my place, perhaps. Not really sure about that anymore. Not that it matters much. Only when I look back to my childhood. All my failures, all my unsuccessful efforts. This is why I study Zen Buddhism, to put things into perspective, into context, as a part of practice. After five years, I am a Legacy Runner for the Chicago Marathon, the only thing I have successfully finished five times. Though I graduated from The University of Memphis, I read Philosophy and Foreign Languages, and made little use of either in my short life. This year, I cannot get back to training. To running in the cold, on gloomy days, at night, with so little sunshine, and only forty-four days of summer, when temperatures were above eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, then came the cool down, and a cold race with little to no real sunshine. I'm not here to complain, nor to argue, nor make excuses, just to comment on experiences, as if reviewing a past life. I have little hope the future has much to offer, to open my horizons with my girlfriend, with opportunities for work, higher education, my family (we don't get along well), but at times I am pleasantly surprised. Out of the blue, something significant goes well. Like getting faster at running. After four years, I dropped an hour racing the marathon. If I could drop an hour again, I could be a competitive racer. But for how long? Who knows? At fifty, I have ten good years if I'm lucky. Depression kicks my ass every winter. It is not seasonal. Running releases endorphins like a corporate endorsement inside my brain. If I don't run, I'm fucked the whole year long. Depression also tells me to relax, to rest, to take time off, to let the body repair its muscles and focus on the pain, to give more attention to injuries. Depression helps, not much, just a little. That's enough now, I've told my tale in a nutshell, and I'm tired of singing.
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