Black is the Color of the Day

"Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling into at night."

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950)

Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light. Black means darkness, doubt, ignorance, uncertainty, or the negation of color. Black is a mysterious color associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. Black is the color of grief.

In Cherokee culture each of the four cardinal directions was associated with a color and inherent meaning. Blue represented north which meant cold, defeat and trouble. White was south representing warmth, peace and happiness. Red was east, the color of the Sacred Fire, blood, and success. West was black the color meaning problems and death. West symbolizes the setting sun, the end of light, the satiation of warmth, the process of dying.

For someone struggling with a deepening spiral of depression which continues to find no bottom, no lessening in intensity, I have found the express elevator to hell. It’s called a solitary three days in a cheap airport hotel room in Minneapolis during an overcast dark rainy cold weekend after a long painful winter. To effectively contrast my misery the hotel is part water park filled with young families of beautiful innocent, curious children and doting pretty mothers with their bubble toes, red painted toenails and partially revealed tattoos adorning alluring glimpses of flesh as they stretch and bend. For them it is all about a world of constant hope and dreams about the future, a connection to tomorrow which I have never experienced. My sole focus on career has left me with no children and what has been growing into a gapping hollow void which can’t be diverted or distracted by the needs of a child. This great contrast of direction and purpose between me and the sea of young families I’m immersed in further accelerates my decent into lifeless chaos. I am invisible, a haunted spirit wandering the corridors unseen, unimportant. Occasionally I will catch the exquisite angelic face of a small child staring at me in the elevator, asking with their soulful eyes why are you sad, as I avert my gaze to prevent a tear from escaping to my cheek.

Until recently I would play a little game each day to discover the color of the day. It was a simple trivial exercise most people would find childish, but which gave me an immense sense of pleasure and connection to the day, a reason to stay fully engaged in the moment, not to drift to yesterday or tomorrow. It was a personal intimacy that had great individual meaning, a little precious secret about the world which no one else was allowed to know. A secret garden tended only for me where I could sit in my mind and feel the sun and smell the perfumed flowers. For what seems like an eternity the only color of the day has been black or the absence of color, just another missing handhold on my decent into hell.

In the sullen blandness of the below standard room I stare out on a brutal indifference to humanity, a sterile concrete parking garage and a scattered collection of dispirited nondescript low utility structures devoid of architectural adornment. Even a grey rain can’t wash the visual violence from the scene as it swirls with a toxic oily film from the hemorrhaged bleeding vehicles that litter my view. Coldness creeps from the window to numb my skin. Time has stopped as red digital clock is frozen. In the deafening silence of the night each small creak and groan of the structure slams my head like a hammer tormenting my attempts to sort through this emotional haze. To unfit to sleep, but yet to lethargic to move, I wait feeling my heartbeat in a listless stupor. The night is caught on a hook not allowing it to move closer to dawn.

Depression is a new experience for me for which its symptoms I find curious. I would have expected the dull confused mental debate and listless apathy, but the overwhelming sense of abandonment and betrayal for no apparent reason is debilitating. My chest feels like it is bound by leather straps so tightly than my breath is shallow, almost suffocating me in a constant reminder of the pressing weight on my soul. Subconsciously I reach to my heart trying to claw away the invisible restraints which confine me. I am surprised by the unbending nature of the torment which barely ceases for brief moments before resuming with increasing intensity. Accompanying the complete loss of appetite is a dramatic shedding of weight. Food has always been an important medicine to cure the ailment of continuous travel and I’m amazed at how complete my repulsion of food is right now, another missing handhold of security.

I have recently developed a slight tremor in my left hand an apparent causality of the degeneration of my nervous system due to the tidal wave of anxiety and stress overwhelming brain function. It is probably a survival response where the extremities are sacrificed to preserve core function, the stockpiling of precious reserves in preparation for a prolonged conflict. After hours of careful observation I have come to the conclusion that there is no collation between the rhythm of the tremor and the pounding of the low grade migraines that are now my constant companion. It is funny how the mind occupies itself during the sleepless hours of the long night.

My mind is trapped in a loop replaying happier times in attempt to discover the path back to that moment in time lost. Images of pain and pleasure flash in my cortex in a surreal mosaic of my life experiences transformed into an evil madness. I’m irritable and quick to anger but cautious to keep mired in despair and sorrow, not allowing anger to gain a foothold. Anger can build into a raging conflagration of resentment and retribution which will burn and consume everything in sight leaving only a bitter residual ash that was once was a beautiful existence. I try hard to contain my despair to only sorrow, not daring to expose the burning flames of anger to be fanned by the winds of chaos and resentment.

I am being summoned to perform another act of group exorcism, restoring their faith in the ability of humanity to deviate from its path of natural destruction. This time it’s a crowd of two hundred gathered awaiting me in the undisputed shrine of consumerism and the citadel of corporate economy, the Mall of America. I walk past the amusement park and the looming murals of sexy vibrant models seducing us with perfect round partially exposed breasts and pouty full red lips. Past the billboards of pubescent bare chest males sporting washboard stomachs, past the overtly sexual manikins with erect plastic nipples, toward the great hall in center of this false church of idol worship. The images festooning every surface are alien creatures from another planet, because none of the mass of humanity milling through the corridors resembles these gods of fashion. I sit quietly gathering my demons into a small cage and summon all the clarity and strength I can, as the speaker reads a long list on my accomplishments. As I arise to take the podium and clip on the microphone, my baggage remains in a heap off stage. I take a deep breath and clear my mind as my voice fills the hall. My words flow like silk decorating the hall in a tantalizing vision of the future, my voice paints a picture of powerful self determination and empowerment as I remain centered and focused as the faces of the crowd convey understanding and solidarity in the message. For ninety minutes I captivate the on lookers, converting their ignorance and forging it into action. The rock star lives. As quickly as it began, it is over as the crowd rises to their feet and provides a sustained ovation of appreciation. I slowly turn and bow leaving the spotlight to return to my cage of demons that have been confined much too long and resume my downward path into darkness.

Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum. Black means darkness, doubt, ignorance, uncertainty, and the negation of color. As it was yesterday, as it is today and as it will probably be tomorrow, black is the color of the day.

Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
'Relax' said the night man, we are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Hotel California by The Eagles

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis."

Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321)

What If?

“Depression is the inability to construct a future.”

Rollo May

Caught unprepared, the slap stung my cheek probably because it was so unexpected. I guess it was an attempt to awake me from this darkness which haunts me. Just pick yourself up, walk it off, its time to cowboy up. Your despair and loss is not unique, you are barely average at best, this shit happens to people everyday. If you want to compare scars look at this. My demons are stronger and bigger than yours. Get use to fact that you are powerless, inept, and drowning in self pity, that’s just the way it’s going to be, so swallow and take your medicine. The words bite me, striping me naked. I’ve always dreaded the precursor “You probably don’t want to hear this, but” because it’s always been an invitation to level a shotgun at my view of reality. It has now become apparent to those around me that I have reached a wall which I can’t surmount. Call it burn out, depression, midlife crisis, or whatever I can no longer conceal it behind a stoic resolve, I can no longer turn it into anger and use it to clear the next hurtle. For the first time in my life I cannot find the pleasure in spring for I am frozen in a winter of blue unable to move forward.

The essence of my self destruction sends me spiraling down a black hole of apathy, a marriage between nightmares and headaches. Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints as I bleed like the stream, pouring sorrow into the ocean. It is like I am standing in a room without any doors. The room is plain white and its only distinguishing feature is its corners. Believing that every corner contains the answers I seek, I claw at them feverously. However, the answers I seek can not be answered by the questions I ask and the corners only torment me. Silently I hope to find the answer, but my hope is fading as I stand in this white room with no doors, no longer wanting a way out. I am assaulted by the clichés just breathe, just put one foot in front of the other, take one step at a time, tomorrow will be better, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the darkest before the dawn, things will get better, but ringing in my ears the clichés are of an ancient dialect that I don’t understand. Do not try to take my sorrow from me; it is the only thing that comforts me right now.

What if your fears and dreams existed in the same place?
What if to get to heaven you had to brave hell?
What if everything you ever wanted cost you everything you ever achieved?
Would you still?

Blurred Vision

My eyes are burning. There is a dull throbbing in the back of my head. The base of my neck is stiff. The suit I’m wearing is wrinkled and disheveled. I feel like my clothes are someone else’s. They don’t fit any more. I’ve dropped 2-1/2 pounds which is probably a good thing. For breakfast, I waited 35 minutes for a stale cold egg and cheese sandwich in the Memphis Airport. I missed lunch and grabbed a buffalo chicken sandwich for dinner on the run. All four flights today were full. The last two legs were flown in heavy chop which for the ancient DC 9 was like sitting on a cement mixer.

I’m reaching the end of what I call a “grinder”. In the past four days I’ve been on eight separate flights on three airlines to four cities. The stretch included two power meetings, one with the president of a hundred million dollar company and the second was with the upper administration of a NCAA division I university. Between those intense presentations, I attended an awards celebration of 300 people for a project we completed last year and visited a construction site. Three days in a row of getting up at 4:00 am and returning to the house at 10:30 pm. It reminds me of Roy Scheider in All That Jazz “Its Showtime”. The redeeming element is that there is only one more trip to New York tomorrow morning to conclude this grinder.

I wanted to capture the numbness and weariness as you hit the wall. Some sleep and a hot shower tend to restore the senses and the emotional cost of the grinder is forgotten. There is a feeling of suspended time sitting and waiting for the descent, for the boarding, for the unloading, for the entire process. With vision too blurred to read and a mind too numb to think, I stare without focusing out the darkened window of the plane. I try to think about a more pleasant existence. I spend the time reliving a special dinner with a friend or visualize walking in a garden. Lost in a memory the moment passes less painfully. I assume it is a similar response prisoner’s use to mentally escape torture. Without warning the bell rings and I am allowed to leave my seat. It’s over; I can go home and rest. I know I’ve got another full day of waiting tomorrow.