"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." ~ Robin Williams

On Monday, August 11, 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide. He was depressed and he hanged himself. Sadly, 10 or 20 years from now most people won't remember his genius, a comedian and actor that entertained us and made us laugh. I remember watching Mrs. Doubtfire and Hook with my kids. They loved him. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of his death for people like me that suffer from depression is that if someone as talented and successful as Robin Williams, an individual that seemingly had it all, could take his own life, check out of this world forever, what are we to make of it, the rest of us? We can either see our own lives as devoid and useless or we can observe that even people like Mr. Williams suffer as we do, and if anything, his tragic departure can become a learning moment by bringing the issue of depression to the forefront so that other people might understand that it's never as simple or as easy to merely "snap out of it."

What my depression felt like

Depression is a funny thing: it doesn't throw itself in front of you; rather, it creeps up...slowly. At first, you're still waking up every morning, making coffee, feeding the cats, bringing in the newspaper; doing all your normal routine things. But then you begin to notice that your To Do list is getting longer and you're doing less and less each day—even simple things like responding to an email or making a phone call becomes difficult. Smiling and trying to make small talk is hard. Eventually you stop answering the phone altogether because it's easier to listen to the messages on the machine than to deal with actually speaking to someone.

You stop going outside. You know you..should..get..up, but it all seems like such an effort. All the things you used to enjoy cease because you have no joy. You become frustrated because you can't muster the strength to do the things you do—you're a writer and you can't write; you're a photographer, but sunsets and colors that used to arouse great passion in you leave you cold and unfeeling. You feel empty inside, and even though you hate the way you feel and you berate yourself and tell yourself to just snap out of it, the worse you feel.

Pretty soon you're not doing much of anything anymore. You're lucky if the day passes and you've even made an attempt at completing something on your list. At night you faux sleep. Your dreams are filled with struggles. You start taking naps in the afternoon because you're tired from fitful sleep at night, but also because sleep offers a brief respite from thinking about how depressed you are; of thinking about death. Everything feels a little surreal. Reading a book or even changing the TV channel with the remote takes too much effort. Sure, there are moments when you don't feel so bad; "maybe I'll do some writing today or set up my tripod at dusk and shoot the moon," you ponder, but then the dark cloud descends and you are right back there, feeling heavy and sluggish and blah and wondering if you'll ever be happy again...ever.

A Photographic Study of a Selfie-Obsessed Senior

Why does a 55-year-old woman take selfies? Standing barefoot and alone in front of the bathroom mirror holding her smart phone in one hand, turning it this way and that way, searching for that one angle that will best reflect her good side? Does she seriously even have a good side anymore? And if she raises her arm strategically high above her head and looks slightly to the left to give the appearance that this is totally NOT staged, she can avoid that awful double chinage that sometimes shows up in pictures that other people take of her.

If she pulls her hair—which she has grown out long again perhaps as a means of holding on to a memory of her youth—she can poof it up on both sides of her face like Stevie Nicks and hide those telltale, age-revealing crow’s feet. She can take an arty shot of her eye, loose strands of hair falling around it...that's always fun, or how about a cropped shot of her Ray Ban’s for a little extra ultra-coolness? Then, when the selfie session is over and she flips back through the images, she has the ability to add hipsteresque filters with names like willow and toaster and sutro and Kelvin and Sierra and X-Pro II that enhance details, change the lighting, intensify, color or soften the lines in a multitude of ways—all designed to make her look younger and trendier, and perhaps somehow make others believe that she is still relevant as an older woman living within a society that says otherwise?

The reality is she is no longer thin and wrinkle-free and twenty two. She is a senior citizen now and sadly, despite a lifetime of adventures & experiences and knowledge; years of growing up & changing & creating & learning; of finally reaching a point of mostly figuring it all out, no matter what she does; no matter how many selfies she takes, I-N-V-I-S-I-B-L-E...is what she has become.

In Dreams...

11 February 2014

For the first few years, I never once had a dream about him, although I wanted to very much. And then, over the years, he’d show up every now and then, not really as a person, but more like a feeling, or a comforting presence beside me that I somehow just knew was him. It wasn’t until recently that my brain has been able to conjure him up fully; to allow me to see him, hear his voice, interact with him in a dream. Usually, it happens around the 11^th of February, the day he died 7 years ago; today. So of course, this morning I didn’t want it to end; this dream. I wanted to hang out with him just a little bit longer, but he smiled his dad smile, gave me a quick hug and said the words that I miss hearing so much, “I love you Sharleen,” and then I am awake.

Miss you dad, still.

GladEye Press Launch & Other Things Worth Mentioning

26 January 2014

I confess. I have been quite remiss. Not that anyone may have noticed, mind you, but I have not posted a new blog entry since around March of 2013, and now here it is nearly March of 2014. Indeed, a lot has been happening in my life. Things changed dramatically in September when my husband was laid off from his job of 13 years. The company brought in some "change agent" knucklehead CEO who decided they no longer needed to publish books. He eliminated the entire book department. Long story short, he received a fairly reasonable severance package and we cashed in his 401K. Because his job was not easily replaceable (according to the employment office) he has been able to draw unemployment while we're starting up the business, which I'll tell you about later, and he doesn't have to report any earnings (not that there are any yet) or look for another job. So that was the impetus for moving forward on the business--neither of us is employed and nobody wants to hire you if you're over 50.


So there was that. Then, my brother died suddenly right after Thanksgiving of a heart attack. He was 60. The funeral was in Arizona and I couldn't afford to fly out there, so I contributed $$ to his stepdaughter, so that she could at least attend. I was telling my friend Gail about Rusty and she made an astute observation about him just wearing himself out. He had pretty much faced adversity his entire life. When he died, he was working three jobs to make ends meet. He died on the job, alone, which was very sad. I wrote a piece that Jennifer read for me at the funeral (see below).


The next thing that happened was my husband learned he has prostate cancer, so in between doctor's appointments, scans, starting a new business, grieving the loss of my brother, along came xmas. Needless to say, by the time the ball dropped on New Year's eve, we were not at all disappointed to see 2013 come to a close.

Now we are embarking on a new business venture together.
There are probably a million little details to starting up a business, but now finally, we have arrived at the good fun part, which is the business of actually making books. We launched GladeEye Press, an independent press that publishes selected non-fiction books in all formats for the education and entertainment of the Pacific Northwest audience. Our first product is the Oregon Festivals 2014 calendar, which can be purchased here. 

We are also on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We received our first press coverage today in the business section of The Register-Guard.

We have tons of great ideas for northwest-based books; a lot of stories to tell, and we know we have plenty of work ahead of us, but we are more than excited to be doing what we love and do best. In the future, I hope to be more active on my blog, sharing things about my so very interesting life, of course, but also about events such as the launch & availability of new titles from GladEye Press, author bios, book signings, etc. If you are interested in becoming an author, please review our author guidelines page here, or you may contact us by phone at 541.747.4514 or via email at: snelson@gladeyepress.com or jvbolkan@gladeyepress.com with your submission ideas.

Douglas Russell (Rusty) Nelson

6.2.1953-11.30.2013

From the very beginning it was a love/hate relationship, as most sibling affiliations are; a push/pull/shove/tumultuous existence between two kids that didn’t ask to be brother and sister.

If he wasn’t using some manner of torture on me—forcing me to hit myself with my own fists, or holding me down and tickling me until I cried and/or peed my pants; ever asking me did I want a Charlie Horse? —then he was teasing me relentlessly, or interminably elbowing me in the backseat of the Rambler for miles on end on family road trips, or walking by and turning the channel when I was watching my favorite cartoon show (this was the pre-remote days), or playing keep away, or squirting me with a squirt gun or the garden hose, or maybe just nonchalantly strolling past me and delivering a well-timed poke…no reason, just because.

Yet, even though I was five years younger and smaller than him, I fought back. I had my own little devious ways of getting back at him; like hiding under his bed and trying not to giggle while he belted out “Hey Jude” with his pretend microphone while pretending to be a Beatle while practicing his fancy dance moves, or stealthily spying on him and jumping out of a pile of leaves to scare him or hiding his stuff or tattling on him, or any number of other things to which little sisters resort in an effort to survive childhood intact. That was the hate part. The love parts were those times when he wasn’t torturing, teasing, or tickling, but rather, was fixing the leak in my bike tire for me or letting me play a game with him or ride up on his shoulders, cracking me up with some hee-larious joke, or playing catch or listening to records or sticking up for me.

After we grew up I didn’t see my brother much anymore, but I remember one time, probably the last time we really did anything together. It was a road trip. My ex-husband was stranded up at Tahoe in the middle of winter. I called Rusty and asked if he could help me. Without hesitation, he said, “Sure, I can!” We hopped into his king-size passenger van and took off, turning the rock-n-roll songs up loud on the radio and singing along, talking, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and drinking strong, black coffee from his enormous thermos all the way to Tahoe. It was the best road trip ever.

If there is such a thing as an afterlife out there in the universe somewhere, I hope my big brother is on a road trip like that one; just rolling down a ribbon of highway somewhere listening to the Beatles and smoking cigarettes and drinking black coffee and having a rockin’ good time in the great whateverafter. You deserve it Rusty. You deserve it. Love always, your little sis, Sharleen