Rebuild from Depression Blog

Sometimes it’s good when you make grand announcements because then you have some obligation to follow through. About ten days ago I told my son that I would only work until 10 a.m. every day in April and we would spend the rest of the day playing together and working on projects. April is here and I have been wondering just how I am going to pull that off. What is worse than your own child’s repetitive refrain being, “Mama you work too hard,” is not being able to follow through on a promise.

One solution is obvious: Get up before the roosters and get an extra hour or two in.

A far better solution is: Take some time off.

To kick off the month in a big way, I begin tomorrow with dental work. It is such a long drive that it occurred to me, “I will be half-way to my sister’s house on the coast.” Since I am taking time off, I might as well keep driving west. There is a place over in Pismo that sells the best clam chowder. Clam is a depression buster food, but the way. It is very high in iron. I may get the steamers since I am apparently on a diet, but that’s a whole other story.

For anyone who has not given up on the book, I have sent in final corrections. I *deserve* time off. :) But I will keep up with my penance until there is something here to buy.

For any clients reading this blog, huge amounts of work happen around here before 10 a.m. No worries. Heck, I may even have work innovations with reduced hours.

Last Starbucks spotted: 3 p.m. Wednesday somewhere near Santa Maria.

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12:30 p.m. Thursday, hole-in-the-wall café in Cayucos

In an area where everyone is either a poor vagabond or a millionaire and it's nearly impossible to tell the difference, a local I liked for the millionaire category announced over a lunch of smoked fish,

"Hey man, if I had twenty bucks, I'd be headed to the border. That's RICH!"

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2:00 p.m., somewhere north of Cayucos

“Mama, I lost my pink sea glass. Pull over! Hurry!”

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2:30 p.m., San Simeon

“Mama, take a picture of me up here.”

“Frederick, at least pretend you need to be up on the top of the car to see the elephant seals.”

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3:30 p.m., Cambria’s Rainbow Bean Coffee House

Sign on the wall:

Coffee contains compounds found beneficial to good health.
Anecdotal studies of regular Rainbow Bean customers indicate that a scone and coffee three times a week makes you A BETTER LOVER.

Quick call home: “Hey Sander, I think I need to stay on the coast longer. Wire money for coffee and scones.”

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6:00 p.m., a lodge in Morro Bay

“Frederick and I need a room for the night and we have decided we may never go home. We need your best rate on a room.”

If you read this blog even a little bit, you know that I am pretty passionate about raw milk. I worked on California’s AB1735 campaign back in October and have the last remaining gallon of milk from the 2006 recall of Organic Pastures milk for E. coli 0157:H7. I tried to mail the milk to David Gumpert at The Complete Patient, but he thought that the existence of the milk brought too much attention to the issue of pathogens in raw milk and, later, he poked me over being too caught up in raw milk minutiae. Boy, is he right. I vowed here a month or two ago that I would stop thinking about E. coli.

My problem is that stuff just keeps coming up that nearly throws me into coronary arrest. My husband calls it “entertainment,” but raw milk doesn’t do a lot for him in the first place, so I guess he can just be entertained. I am not entertained at all.

I listened to the raw milk hearings here in the state the other night and I find it hard to listen to them without a great deal of cynicism because of the elephant in the raw milk room. In fact, I have been having a hard time not letting that cynicism eat me up. Raw milk is supposed to be health-giving, after all. For every enzyme or bacteria it may have added to my digestive system, it has stolen a second of my sleep as well, so I'll just get to it and tell the story.

If you are arriving to the story late, I’ll include a bit of background before I get to the bad stuff.

The children
On September 21, 2006, my sister called to tell me that Organic Pastures raw milk was recalled because of possible bacteria contamination. Surrounding that recall, six children were sickened by the pathogenic E. coli 0157:H7 and all six apparently had raw milk. I say “apparently,” because it’s actually more complicated. To the best of my knowledge, the outbreak looked like this:

In the two weeks since I posted from the coast, my son and I have finally returned from our trip. We didn’t actually stay for two weeks but we did turn two days into four. We didn’t really need an excuse to overstay our plans, but I did end up with computer problems and thought “I could go home and have computer problems or I could have them right here on the coast.” Really, the coast is a much better place to be when you cannot use your computer.

Frederick and I took a “self-portrait” on the beach in Cambria.

I am remembering the coast because it's been a bit tough around here since we got back. We were all sick for a few days and thought that was terrible. I knew I would be posting about raw milk and thought that was terrible too. Life has a way of putting things in perspective: we received word that a family member had six months to live, about ten days ago now. Five days ago we were told he had one week and he lasted another day and a half. The generation above me is struggling quite a bit, though the family is expecting a much-anticipated baby this very week. Thank God for babies.

This is one of those times when you have to focus on taking care of yourself and your family. We're behind on everything (as usual), including our commitments on this website. I was just looking at pictures from my son's birthday party Sunday (because cute kids always help) and found some cool pictures from our trip to the coast.

Nutritional deficiencies are a big part of my own depression story. I spent the formative years of my life on low fat diets of bagels and imitation cheeses. Nary an Omega-3 was to be found. I proceeded through life managing nonetheless until my body was charged with making an entire new person. As my son’s brain developed in my womb, he sucked the limited Omega-3 stores out of me and I went bananas from the lack. I produced the food that grew him out of his infancy as well, a food that also required Omega-3 fatty acids and many other nutrients. We just celebrated his sixth birthday and I am finally feeling recovered from my task of producing him.

Omega 3 fatty acids were a critical thing I was deficient in and until I fixed that deficiency, all of the talk therapy in the world would not have gotten me very far above zero. It may have helped keep me out of a deeper hole, but it would not be effective on its own in improving my health.

What has happened as I face the rest of my life and establish structures for myself to maintain my mental health, I realize that the key for all of us is to determine what we are most deficient in that we can change. Focus on changing that. The food nutrients are in our control. It is a fairly easy place to begin.

What I am finding more challenging for myself is engaging in positive behaviors like rest and relaxation. It is sometimes difficult to give ourselves what we really need. Here are some of my reflections on my own life and I am working hard to integrate them into my lifestyle.

Every day should have a wee bit of vacation in it.

We haven’t received our fiscal-stimulus checks around here yet, but we’ve all been bantering about what to do with them. Here are some ideas:

My dad:

“I am putting mine in the bank because that’s exactly what the government doesn’t want me to do with it.”

My mom:

“I may cash mine and put the cash under the mattress. Or perhaps I’ll buy garden seeds.”

My husband:

“I am going to save everyone a lot of time and send my check directly to China.”

Me:

“I’m going to Disneyland.”

I do try to do my part as an American.