The anti anti-depressant

The anti anti-depressant - the works of W.G. Sebald as described by the psychiatrist, Lawrence Kirmayer.

It seems somewhat appropriate that I am countering my attempts to adjust my mood via pharmaceuticals with literature. Sounds like one of those stupid ass things that I would do. Because if you are taking anti depressants, the next logical move would be to take an anti anti-depressant, no?

One of the recurrent themes in Sebald's work, as far as my rather puny understanding goes, is the limited capacity of the human mind for the detail of things. His books tend to focus on the exploration of the histories of small, seemingly unimportant objects. Which are apparently chosen at random.

Thus a whole book, and a good book at that, a story of loss, of absence, of triumph and disaster is spun from one single central object. An old photograph. A stone wall. And Sebald begs the question, where do you stop? Because you can't stop when an object is human in origin, it could link to and resonate with and encompass completely or be a small element of many, many other stories.

An unlimited and, arguably, rather frightening potential. Vertiginous. Inhuman.

And if we approached every object with this Sebaldian world view in mind, we are soon staring into an empty hole. With everything inside it. Because what we are looking at is so vast that it is impossible to assimilate.

****

And I look at the graffiti, in a toilet, in a seaside town. I see x.x. loves x.x. except that they are not called x.x. Unsurprisingly. I can't make out who they are because what was once initials is so heavily scored out as to be unintelligible.

And suddenly I am a teenage girl, scoring out her once proudly carved marker. And the rejected lover. And her mother. And her father. Her friends. Possibly her cat. And I'm wondering about the argument that caused that vicious scoring out. Over and over.

And I blame W.G. Sebald. Thanks a bunch my far more literate friend. You certainly did a number on me.

***

So, my attempts to analyse literature aside, what point am I trying to make?

Writing the previous post led me to reflect on blog commenting, what fuels it, what makes me want to read every post in Angie's series, to say something about every post, to stamp my mark upon it and leave a scrawl underneath it. It is because I feel that I should? Or because I said that I would? What is driving me?

Perhaps part of it is some form of self-punishment. Because I don't like myself and I, most particularly, don't like myself without Georgina. I always felt that it would, somehow, be wrong to be happy without her. That to be happy without her would be to make her brief little life worthless.

So maybe I choose to take the anti anti-depressant. To know that my life is tiny and small. That there are hundreds, thousands of stories that I could read. That I could invest a part of my heart in. Names I could remember. Try to honour.

But I don't think it is quite that simple.

Because to me there is strength in numbers, there is a peculiar beauty in Sebald's world view. Of that vast endless black hole that we finally reach when we attempt to analyse cultural objects, individual stories, buildings.

Because my life IS tiny. It IS worthless. It IS small. One among billions and billions and vanishing away to nothing.

But.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

Nobody ever promised comfort or cosiness. Perhaps we see beauty more frequently than we fancy.

To see the truth and not avert my eye. To see the truth in one, refracted back through ten.

And to hear the story that remains untold. Because I know that you are there. Silent. But I hear you, whispering. With my ear pressed down against the wire.

If I were a confidence interval I would not be 95% or 98%. There is no certainty in me. I would be the odds of my eldest daughter's chance of life. Disappearing-ly thin. And sometimes I hate myself for not being a semi-deity. For not remembering every detail, every image, every word.

So what do I hope to become? A strange being with the ability to absorb grief, to hold it close to the heart, to feel it, to remember? There's hubris for you.

But there is, perhaps, some grace in the effort. However feeble.

But I hope to hold a story, unrelated to my own, in my mind. Just passingly (which is far less than they deserve.)

To fill my mind with one. With yours. With the brief, the unsung, the tiny, the small.
The beautiful. The true.

Because in loving yours, I love my own.