The Silken Tent
      My Letter to the World
      December 2000
      December 10, 2000
      Sunday


      My last post was something of a downer, treating as it did the coming of what appears to be a long term visit from the Spirit of Seasonal Depression, last month imaged as the Witch of November, this month decked out in fur-trimmed red velvet and posing as a tree-top Angel of Doubt who is casting something of a shadow over my Christmas activities.

      This is the Second Sunday of Advent, the Christian liturgy's preparational season leading up to Christmas. By tradition, Advent begins on the Sunday closest to St. Andrew's Day (November 30). There are always four Sundays, but this year that fourth Sunday falls on Christmas Eve, making that last "week" of Advent last only a few hours.

      As my inner life has developed over the last twenty years, Christmas has taken on two distinct parts. The first two weeks are all about outer preparation. That's when I clean the house, buy gifts, write my seasonal letter, and plan and execute my Gaudete Sunday Open House. Gaudete (pronounced Gow-day-tay) Sunday is always the third Sunday of Advent. The word means rejoice and is meant to be a moment of lightness in what was once a penitential season.

      The penitential aspects of the season are now largely ignored by the modern church, which emphasizes watchful waiting and preparation for change. That's the second half of my Christmas -- the last two weeks (this year, as noted above, a week and a few hours) devoted to inner preparation, orienting myself to a new calendar year and pondering ways in which I have grown and ways in which I can change for the better.

      The first week of this season was a bit difficult. I'd begun taking charge of my seasonal depression just before Thanksgiving, and that week went smoothly. I wrote, printed, and assembled the invitation for my party and paid attention to diet and exercise. Every day I accomplished something that made me feel positive and productive.

      On Friday December 3 I saw my doctor again for a final check of the cellulitis (improving rapidly). She noticed my cold symptoms, which were most bothersome. She prescribed a course of guaifenesin and phenylpropanolamine hydrochloride to be taken in the daytime for runny nose and congestion, and benzonatate to be taken at night for cough control.

      Those with some pharmaceutical savvy will recognize the second element in that first concoction as the common ingredient in over-the-counter diet pills (recently withdrawn from the market) and the latter preparation as among the family of benzodiazepams, popularly known as Valium and Librium. Yes, friends, speed and tranquilzers.

      As it happens, 100% pharmaceutical/medical grade speed and tranquilzers are still speed and tranquilizers. In my experience, they don't cure your condition (they're not meant to), but you don't care anymore, as you now have a whole new set of symptoms, including distorted thinking, depression unto despair, inability to concentrate, and a feeling that there must be something wrong with the thermostat in the house because it feels like about 90 even in the unheated garage.

      I know what the drugs are, I read the package insert, but somehow it just didn't register with me. By the fifth of December I was desperately uncomfortable, an old knee injury had sprouted a red angry lump the size of a softball, I could barely walk, and I was carrying the bag of invitations around in my car wondering if I should go through with anything. Fortunately, I had a regular appointment with my psychologist, and somehow, when she read me the side effects of the meds (as presented in the Physicians' Desk Reference, which I think has the REAL story), I saw the light.

      I stopped taking everything (including, some people will be happy to note, aspartame as found in the 12 ounces of non-caffeinated diet soda I drink every day), had an accupressure massage and an accupuncture treatment for "clearing," and began to feel more like myself. I mailed the invitations, made an appointment with a surgeon to look at this old injury, and today made two pans of ham balls and four pans of vegetarian lasagna.

      Still to come -- holiday baking!!


       

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      Margaret DeAngelis.

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