Gum on My Shoe

Happy? Why does everyone have to be happy all the time? — Doc Martin , S6E7 This blog post was inspired by a conversation with Fran in which she mentioned asking a friend, “Are you happy?” After what I imagine was a moment’s hesitation her friend answered, “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.” I smiled at the answer but it reminded me of something I struggle with a lot. We take for granted that everyone uses words in the same way. This is fine when we’re discussing material things or events. If I told you I spent six hours in my local coffee shop working on this blog post, you’d know what I meant. If I said I enjoyed myself you’d nod, relating my use of enjoyed to situations you’d label with the same word. But we don’t necessarily use it in the same way. We might label distinctly different emotions with the same word, and use different labels for essentially the same experience. I told Fran that if she was to ask me “Are you happy?” I’d first have to think about what that word means ...

This is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time. — Libba Bray I love to share content I find interesting and relevant. In a recent post about coffee shop conversations I mentioned two friends whose craft and creativity deserve a wider audience. I’ve previously shared ten content creators who make me happy . This time I’m sharing ten artists and creators who inspire, motivate, and challenge me in different ways. Their areas of interest and engagement vary widely. Topics include physical and mental health, suicide awareness, women’s autonomy, gender identity, trans rights, animal welfare, and body positivism. More than anything they explore and express what it means to be human. What it means to be unique. What it means to be alive. In no particular order they are: Marisa Ramirez Fraser Morgan Riona O Connor Mali and Joe Emily Kimelman Mark Hogben Man Who Has It All Rocky Kanaka Closer To Truth Andrea Gibson Marisa Ramirez (Kimmel) ...

Very few writers treat writing [...] as an instrument for living, not as an aim in itself. — Colin Wilson ( The Outsider ) I met John earlier this year at the bar of the Wateredge Inn in Ambleside. Our ten minute encounter inspired two blog posts: One Must Imagine Marty and John Happy: Two Strangers Discuss the Absurd in an Ambleside Pub and Miserable Places: My Welsh Nightmare . In the course of our conversation John recommended a book to me. Colin Wilson’s The Outsider isn’t an easy read but several passages resonated with me. In one, the author relates the story of the Duke of Ch’i and his wheelwright. The message is that the legacy we leave behind cannot capture or convey the essence of our skills and knowledge. The essence of who we are. This is highly relevant to articles I’ve written about end of life planning, especially How Much Do You Want to Know Me? Preparing to Write My Obituary . It’s a topic I’m likely to explore further in the future. For now, I can admit th...

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. — Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator This post was inspired by a recent chat conversation with Fran. Apropos of nothing, she messaged me the following seven words. Martin Camus cup straight out of HTLT She’d found the entry in her calendar but couldn’t remember putting it there or what it signified. For several minutes, we tried to work it out. Fran thought the first three words might be a reminder to buy me a Albert Camus-related mug for my birthday. She knows I’m interested in the philosopher’s work, especially his doctrine of Absurdism. I have a Camus t-shirt and have blogged about him previously. Then again, Fran thinks of me as Marty not Martin, and why write cup instead of mug? HTLT refers to High Tide, Low Tide: The Caring Friend’s Guide to Bipolar Disorder but there’s no mention of Camus or philosophy in our book at all. Something that is straight out of HTLT is the paradox of words a...

Walking in the park, I saw an old man sitting on a bench. He looked sad. So I wrote him a poem about the ducks. It’s for your wife, I said. He looked at me. At the poem. Thank you, he said. She loved the ducks. He was crying as I walked away.   Photo by Guilherme Garcia at Unsplash.  

In this post I’ll explore how daily creativity can benefit our mental health, self-confidence, and sense of connection to others. I’ll focus on the work of four photographers (Clark James Mishler, Brandon Stanton, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, and Ellis Ducharme) and one artist (Devon Rodriguez). I’ll also draw on my experiences with daily photography and writing. Engagement This post was inspired by a recent conversation with Fran in which she mentioned a photographer in Alaska who took one photograph a day. The photographer is Clark James Mishler , a documentary portrait photographer based in Calistoga, California. He relocated to Anchorage in the early 1980s where he spent four decades as Alaska’s premier environmental portrait photographer. There’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes video of Mishler at work on the Frontier Scientists YouTube channel. His approach to street portraiture (“Would you guys mind participating in a photo shoot?”) impresses and terrifies me — the lat...

I need the sea because it teaches me. — Pablo Neruda Being out in nature is often advanced as a counter to depression and other mental health difficulties. I’d never go so far. Mental illness can have many different causes and its symptoms are not so readily lifted. Having said that, spending time in the natural world can take us out of our present situation, both literally and figuratively. Alone or in trusted company, such times afford us the opportunity to gain distance from, and perspective on, whatever may be going on for us. I was reminded of this the other day. Fran was telling me of the great time she’d spent the day before with a mutual friend of ours on Ferry Beach in Scarborough, Maine. The setting itself, the companionship, the conversation, had meant a lot to Fran. I thought back to when she lived on Peaks Island, when we were first friends. She’d walk on the beach there, occasionally sharing her location with me so I could follow along virtually. She’d return...

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them. (Stephen Grosz) Inspired by a writing prompt to “tell the story of something that happened to you, but write it from a different perspective, or as fiction rather than fact” I recently shared a short story of mine on this blog. Originally written in 1999, Home Eleven is an urban fantasy based loosely on events and experiences at Newcastle’s Green Festival. You might wonder what relevance it has to our blog’s core themes of mental health and supportive friendships. To be honest, I wondered that myself. I was persuaded by a conversation with my friend Roiben. I told her it felt a little like cheating to use a story I’d already written, especially one penned so long ago with no obvious connection to our blog’s topics. Roiben encouraged me to post the story nonetheless and use it as a jumping off point to discuss how it feels to reframe my lived experience as fiction. Her insight led to this article ...

Writer, poet, and mental health advocate John Medl hails from Ohio, USA. I chatted with him recently to discuss his life and work. MB: Hello John, could you tell us a little about yourself? JM: I’m an author and mental health advocate from Cincinnati, Ohio USA. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features in 2006, and I have general anxiety and panic attacks. I will be forty years old in October. MB: When did you start writing? JM: I’ve been writing since high school, but my first book wasn’t published until 2014. That first book was out of desperation. I didn’t know if I was going to survive. I wanted to tell my story in case anything happened to me. MB: That’s a powerful motivation. How many books have you written? JM: Five altogether. The first was Millions Like Me: My Struggle with Mental Illness , followed by Poems From a Bipolar Mind , The Last Day of July: 13 Years of Madness , The Entropy of Bipolar Disorder , and Mental Illness Is An Actual Illness . They...