Looking out my Backdoor: Instruction Manual: Care and Feeding of a Funk

The other day I found myself feeling a little low, a little down in the dumps. The problem is, I was enjoying the feeling, to some extent. The next problem is that I found it so dag gone hard to maintain the slump.

We don’t come with an instruction manual so I figure it is high time somebody writes one.

***This does not apply to real depression. Depression is a serious matter. For real depression, see your doctor. Please.

One of my friends said, “It’s your bio-rhythm. Wait a few days and you will cycle through it with a mood upswing.”

I said, “You are so stuck in the ’70s. Hmmm. I wonder whatever happened to my mood ring.”

Another friend told me, “Ah, yes. One of the planets is in retrograde.” She didn’t know which one and I wouldn’t know what that means anyway.

Two poets told me that feeling sad is the human condition. “Amen,” I said. “So is feeling joy.”

I figured my slump in the funky dump meant that on some level I wanted to wallow in a little self-pity. I think that feeling sorry for myself brings its own reward. I also know that like the planets and bio-rhythm, this too will pass. After I drain my funk of all the pleasure I can squeeze out.

I don’t waste too much time figuring out what causes me to hit the low notes. They comes. They goes.

One of my long-ago friends used to tell me that when she really wanted to feel pain in her life, all she had to do was take the ferry to Seattle and visit her abusive mother. She said she always drove home thinking about driving into a bridge abutment at 90 mph. But.

But. But, she returned to her little home and her son grateful for life, grateful that she was alive and that she did not repeat her mother’s parenting pattern. She, a forever friend, always made me smile.

My restlessness meant I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t want to go anywhere. But, I couldn’t sit still. Several times a day I wandered out to my backyard to a little patio slab I had made beneath the jacaranda tree.

Now, this is a real mood wrecker. Immediately I was surrounded with butterflies, eight, ten, a dozen, all sizes, all colors, the huge white bed-sheet butterflies, the colorful oranges and yellows and browns and purples and all combinations of colors, including a huge black moth, as large as a bat. And, they didn’t care. They didn’t care if I felt up or down. They didn’t care that I am human and dangerous. They simply are. And, they flitted all around and played tag in my face.

I no more than sat down to become butterfly entertainment, than the silly little partridge doves were at my feet. Same story. They didn’t care. They didn’t care that I might be wondering how many dozen of them it would take to bake in a pie, more than four and twenty.

When a flock of my favorite black-bellied whistling ducks flew low overhead, I gave up. I went back to the house to make a pie. Apple pie. On my way to the house I pulled a juicy lime from my broom-stick tree. That lime smelled as good as I felt.

I’m sorry. I had failed again. This isn’t much of an instruction manual. I tried. You will just have to figure out what works best for you.

Sondra Ashton

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Sondra Ashton grew up in Harlem but spent most of her adult life out of state. She returned to see the Hi-Line with a perspective of delight. After several years back in Harlem, Ashton is seeking new experiences in Etzatlan, Mexico. Once a Montanan, always. Read Ashton’s essays and other work at http://montanatumbleweed.blogspot.com/. Email [email protected].