There are many depression checklists in the world. Most include questions about sleeping, negative thoughts, life events, motivation, joy. My personal depression checklist should start with this: do I care if objects are out of place?

I brought home something last week, can’t remember what, took it out of a black plastic bag, crumpled up the bag and set it on the end table next to the couch. I probably had some reason for that, but I have no idea what it was. And there the bag sat. Every time I walked past it, I thought I should get rid of it. Recycle it, throw it away, fold it up for re-use — lots of options, but definitely something other than let it sit on the end table indefinitely.

Instead, there it sat. One day, then the next, then a couple more, while the weather was gloomy and oppressive, and the demands of the house (paint me! trim my trees! take out the garbage!) felt like a mountain too overwhelming to climb, and mostly, I just wanted to sleep or read or stare into space while pretending to either sleep or read. Well, wanted is the wrong word. I didn’t really want anything at all. Except maybe for the endless churning wheel of time to just let me off for a little break.

Yesterday, I saw the bag sitting on the table and without even thinking much about it, grabbed it and got rid of it. And then I put the headphones that had been hiding underneath it away. While I was at it, I straightened up the shelves, moved some dirty clothes into the right laundry baskets, decided to do a load of laundry, and hey, maybe fold some of the clothes that had been sitting around since last week’s load of laundry. And then, finally, I realized — I feel okay again. After really not feeling okay for several days.

I don’t know why I dropped into the pit or why I came out of it so quickly. At most, that was ten days or so of depression. But I also don’t know why I couldn’t recognize it as that while I was experiencing it. Note to self: tired, unproductive, gloomy, unwilling to make a smidgen of effort to live in a neater space = depression.

Today, though, the sun shone. I walked the dog and admired flowers (azaleas, I think, but I could be making that up) and felt summer in the air. My characters stirred in my brain and maybe even started chatting. And it’s March, which means February — almost always the worst month of the year for me — won’t be back for another year. Fingers crossed that the same is true for the part of me that lets empty plastic bags sit on end tables for days on end.

It’s 1PM, and I’ve eaten a salad and stew today. Vegetables (and fruits) included, in rainbow order: red onion, strawberries, beets, cranberries, carrots, sweet potato, onion, avocado, arugula, spinach, cucumber, celery, white radish. Probably not entirely in the obvious order — the strawberries were in the salad and the cranberries were in the stew, plus the salad was for breakfast and the stew for lunch — but I am so tempted to run to the store and buy some blueberries just so my rainbow could include blue. I suppose it doesn’t really include purple, either, but red onion could count as purple.

Yesterday I wanted stew, so I went out and bought stew meat but I didn’t read any recipes first. I got home and started reading but I didn’t have all the ingredients for any stew that sounded interesting, so after looking for a while, I got annoyed and decided, eh, stew. Isn’t the basic premise of stew — you know, in a historical romance novel sort of way — to soften tough meat while making limited food stretch to feed many? It can’t really be all about the rules.

So I made stew. I browned some beef in a little bit of bacon fat, and while it cooked, I chopped vegetables. Carrots, celery, onion — but then, hey, I had some beets to use up. And I need to eat more sweet potato, I know the nutrients are good for me, but I’m tired of the taste, so stew’s a good way to hide it. Two cups of chicken broth, a half cup or so of balsamic vinegar, a couple teaspoons of Italian herbs, a couple pressed cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, some salt, dump everything into the crock-pot and walk away. Until about a hour before it ought to be done, when I added a bunch of spinach, purchased at the farmer’s market on Wednesday, and a handful of frozen cranberries. Why cranberries? Because the most interesting recipe I found — which I couldn’t follow, because I didn’t have the other ingredients — was for a stew with cranberries in it.

It was delightfully weird. I’m not sure what made it quite so pink, whether it was the beets or the cranberries or maybe it was both, but it had a sweet tanginess that went so well with the taste of meat. The dogs got a tiny taste of it last night and today, when I was eating lunch, Zelda kept putting her paws on my knees as if to remind me that she should not be forgotten. I let her lick out my bowl while I gave B a little bit of the broth in his own bowl and both dogs licked their bowls until every last speck was gone, plus three more licks on each spot, just to make absolutely sure.

Even the contrast of textures worked. The sweet potatoes got mushy, of course, like they do, but the beets stayed solid and the carrots were somewhere in between. Combined, it was a little of everything.

I think I’ve made myself hungry again. I’m really not, though — I just want to go eat again because it’s such a fun meal. So instead…well, I ought to go write.

The last few days haven’t gone well on the writing front. The combination of yoga every day, walking every day, writing every day, sticking to AIP every day… on Thursday, I hit my limit. I was tired, deep-down, had-enough, fed-up-with-everything sort of tired. I went off the diet, ate things that I wasn’t supposed to, didn’t do yoga, didn’t write, and then yesterday, surprise, was really quite sure that I was coming down with something. Today I’m feeling okay, though, so I am trying to get back on the plan.

It may be that the morning pages were the instigation. They’re supposed to unleash your creativity, inspire you to let the words flow, but I’ve used them this week as self-analysis, my own internal psycho-therapy and … ha, my old therapist would be pleased that I just caught myself intellectualizing. I wanted to say that it’s interesting, but that’s not how I feel about it. I feel… I think hurt is the right word. I keep letting the words go and I’m so damn mean to myself. Seriously, I would never talk to another human being the way I talk to myself when I am just spewing forth. I think I’m getting worthwhile discoveries from it, but I seriously need to cover my walls with positive affirmations to counter the unkind self-talk that simmers just under the surface. Or — and this is probably really what I need to do — work on where all that negativity is coming from and see how I can heal it. That, however, sounds like a huge life project, so perhaps I’m just going to go back to doing yoga and writing every day. Including the writing sprints, which truly fell by the wayside in the past week. I should be somewhere in Week 3 of my Write Plan, but I haven’t even reminded myself of what week 3 includes. Oops.

Wow, this blog post really wandered away from my rainbow topic. Oh, well, it’s words, it’s writing, and now that my fingers are warmed up, I think I’ll go stare at one of my files for a while. This morning, half asleep, Meredith started talking to me, so maybe the short story is going to come first. I think it really is starting to get somewhere. I hope so, anyway!

I let myself off the hook for my 40-Day Write and Yoga Plan today, but I’ve been feeling vaguely guilty about it ever since I got home. Writers Write. Even when they’re tired, even when the day was busy, even when three dogs are demanding attention and wishing for walks. Writers write.

And so … today was a gorgeous day. I checked the weather this morning before hopping in the car and the report for Orange City gave a zero percent chance of rain. Zero. It amused me, because surely there is some teeny-tiny possibility of some freak weather system springing up out of nowhere?* But apparently, no, there is not and the weather people did not lie — the sun shone in a clear blue sky all morning long.

Orange City was the location for the kayak tour I impulsively signed up for last week. It was a winter manatee tour, and it was wonderful. My friend Lynda joined me, and we spent three hours or so with a small group of tourists and a very knowledgeable guide, paddling around the St. Johns river — the slowest river in the United States, I now know — including lots of bird sightings and a stop at the outside edge of the Blue Springs manatee reserve for some manatee sightings, too. We saw a wood stork, hawks, many ibises, great egrets, blue herons, anhingas, and some other birds I can’t remember. (Isn’t that always the way it is?)

A big alligator was so still it seemed potentially fake until we got so close that it splashed into the water and swam away. Poor guy, we ruined his sunbathing.

The manatees were mostly grey splotches under the water, with an occasional nose breaking through the surface, but at one point, we could watch the plant life being pulled down from a manatee munching on its roots. For some reason, that felt very mystical to me, but in an entertaining way. Like a metaphor for how something under the surface can affect what we see — interactions, reactions? — but in this case, it was a big, mellow, sea cow. It could have been scary, horror movie-ish — the leaves disappearing mysteriously, the hidden creature under the surface — but instead, it was this connection with nature that felt magical, like knowing something beyond what can be seen. I’m probably not making any sense. I’ll have to think more about it. But it was cool.

Also cool — the actual kayaking. I was asked if we wanted a tandem or single kayaks and even though I have never in my life been the sole person in a boat, I said ‘single’. It was terrific. The feeling of power when I started to figure out how to steer was so satisfying. It was very low-key, no real need to be strenuous about it, but I got into a really great rhythm a couple times, stretching my arms out in the push and pull and feeling very yoga-connected, breath and motion, working together. And then I’d splash myself or bump into another kayak and the moment would end, but even when I was just sort of bumping along, it was enjoyable.

Useful things I got out of it: the color of the forest right now is far more gray than I’d been writing it, mostly because of the Spanish moss. It’s still comparatively green (compared, say, to upstate New York at this time of year), but the shades are muted, tans and browns and amber, with splashes of deep green and sprinklings of light green, the light being new leaves just sprouting on the trees.

Kayakers paddle. They use paddles, not oars, and they use the word paddling. They also go kayaking, as opposed to rowing or boating or out on the water. They use tie-down straps, called sometimes tie-downs, to attach the kayak to the roof of a car. They use dry bags to keep their stuff safe and dry. That last is a nice one, because it’s the kind of question I wouldn’t even have known how to ask.

Great egrets have yellow beaks. Blue herons are white when they’re babies, but ibises are brown when they’re young. Ibises get anxious about red-tailed hawks flying by and when they’re anxious, they stay in the air. The easy-to-see birds (ie, the white ones) make quiet sounds, but the birds that can hide well have much louder calls, presumably because it’s harder for potential mates to see them in their well-camouflaged state.

Will I use all of that? Probably not. Grace could know a random fact or two about the birds, but I don’t really see her as a bird-watcher. But then I didn’t know she was a kayaker until that kayak mysteriously appeared on top of her car, so perhaps I’ll learn more as I write. And I’ll be well-prepared either way!

Ugh, just looked at the clock and it’s almost six. Where did my time go? Time to take care of dogs. But what a wonderful day it was. I am feeling so fortunate, so lucky, tonight. A sunny day outside on the water is good for the soul, I think. Mine is feeling refreshed and peaceful, and looking forward to a good writing day tomorrow.

*Ding, idea for a fun Tassamara power. Control of the weather. But I think it would have to be some sort of technology that someone had developed, because Tassamara, to date, has been all abilities that some people actually believe in, and I’m not sure anyone believes that someone else can control the weather. But still, it could be really cool. Weather change could happen via some sort of manipulation of energy, I suppose? Another idea to think about!

I was cold while walking the dog this morning. I hurried her along, impatiently encouraging her every time she paused at some neighbor’s trash can for more than a second or two. “Cold, Zelda, cold,” I said. “Walk faster!”

Possibly I should have worn socks? Or maybe a jacket? Instead, I had on sandals, a sweatshirt, and a light scarf. About halfway through my walk, Zelda gave me a plaintive look, and I had to laugh at myself. And take a picture.

This was dangling in front of me. Bananas. Or plaintains. I don’t have any idea how one tells the difference and I’d look it up, but then I’d wake up to discover that three hours had passed while I was looking at plant pictures on the internet and I don’t have time for that today.

Anyway, it was a potent reminder that while I don’t generally think of where I live as tropical, it’s pretty darn close. Palm trees and hibiscus and bougainvillea that grows like a weed and bananas… yep, tropical.

In other news, the kitchen is close. So, so close. The microwave still needs to be put up and there are wires sticking out of the walls that are destined to be connected to lights under the cabinets and I need to do a tile backsplash and repair some paint, but it’s nearly there.

It’s strange how I feel about it. I’ve been trying to separate myself from the house for the last unknown number of months, facing the reality that I cannot afford to live in a three-bedroom house with a lawn and a pool, and if I want to keep trying to make it as a writer, I should be planning a move to a studio apartment instead. Those are mostly not bad thoughts for me — I don’t feel like I need much, and I’ve been content in a studio apartment before. But the kitchen is mine now, in a way it wasn’t before. I want to not love it because then it will be harder to give it up, but there’s a deep-down core part of me that wants to stand in it, saying, “Mine, mine, mine,” like the seagulls in Finding Nemo.

The one sort of big thing left to do, post house-disaster, is to turn my office back into my office. It was where the flood was worst, and I wound up moving everything out of that room. For the last month, it’s where all the kitchen stuff has been stored, and before that, it held the Christmas tree, but now it’s empty, so I can again turn it into my work station. I appear to be reluctant to do so, however, because it makes such a great yoga space. Lots of room, great light, no distractions. Still, I’ll get on that. Maybe this weekend.

On Friday, in honor of Friday the 13th and because I like the juxtaposition of Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day, A Lonely Magic is going to be free for the first time. I feel like I should spend today searching for ad sites that might be able to run an ad for it with that little notice, but if I did that, I’d be being a sensible business person. Instead, I’m going to go back to tweaking this same stupid chapter of A Gift of Grace and see if maybe I can get Noah and Grace back in the same room. Or same place, since literally, it’s the forest, not a room.

My dad says, “you should read this book.”

I say, “Um, someday, maybe.”

My dad says, “No, really, you should read this book.” And then he delivers the paperback to me.

I think, “Okay, someday, maybe.”

But I’ve heard about this book.

Me + graphic violence = ha, ha, not so much.

Me + realistic rape depictions = I have better things to do with my life.

But today, my anxiety is skyrocketing, so high that if there were an Olympics for anxiety, I’d be a gold medal contender. (Short version: kitchen repairs, broken granite, strangers in my house, etc.) I am desperate for the drug that will take me out of my current state of being and it doesn’t exist, so okay, yes, fiction.

70 pages in, oof, this book is boring, is it ever going anywhere?

120 pages in, I think I’m finally starting to get a fix on all the characters.

200 pages in, wow, I love this woman. She’s so … analytical. It’s not that she’s cold, it’s that she’s thoughtful. But without a full world view. Sheltered, in a crazy sort of way.

336 pages in, yep, I’m apparently staying up all night, because I am pretty sure I am not sleeping until I understand who did it, why, and how. ARGH!

Writing lesson? The good mystery at the beginning — who sends these pictures? — is an excellent trap for the reader.

And now, sorry, I have to go back to reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, with the full understanding that everyone else in the world has read it already. But if you haven’t, you should!