Working through this depression isn’t easy. It takes work, persistence, and the knowledge that my immediate perception isn’t the reality.  I need to maintain my focus on how I feel.. Am I angry, fearful, lonely tired? Do I need to eat something, like fruit and yogurt that will  maintain my blood sugar levels? Do I need to decrease my caffeine intake? Right now, at 10:45 PM, herb tea sounds like a good idea. 

I need to stop the Great War documentary I’m watching. At this point it is dealing with the run up to hostilities. I switched to Paris Was A Woman, a documentary about women artists and writers in Paris in the interwar years 1919-1940. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are my spiritual friends.. Gertrude is telling me to stop trying to figure everything out. Some things just need to be experienced and comprehended with some faculty other than logic.. Alice is sitting there patiently, taking it all in, suggesting I do the same.

Now Josephine Baker is on the screen. Black Genius, beyond dispute, with the compassionate heart of a humanitarian, she is the inspiration we all need now. 

(As an aside, don’t destroy art that you don’t like or what offends you).

These wonderful wise women, speaking from their experience, are comforting this tired man, who, in the presence of their wisdom, is more boy than man, more 16 than 69.

Later, I will break the ice covering my reservoir of Love, and pray for those so keen on destruction, self-destruction especially.