Who ate all the pie..?

Chart.

I have been having a bit of a mixed time lately - good times with family and friends, things are good at work, and Freya and I have had a chance to go and see a bit of the Fringe with Wee C away for a holiday at Granny and Papa's in Killie.  But the "Enemy Within" has also been in evidence, which is, I suppose, nobody's fault but mine.  The ol' Black Dog has been chewing my brain like it was a manky old slipper.  Which, in a way, it is.

I was thinking a bit about it this morning, and (being the sad old Excel-jockey that I am) I started visualising it as a pie-chart.  In my life, the vast majority is good, with my lovely family making up a substantial slice, and with friends, music, books and work etc. making up most of the rest.  Just now, however, I don't seem to have the whole pie - I am in possession of less than 100%.  One section appears to have been substituted for dark matter - or just nothing.

This missing part is, I think, the creative part of me.  And I damn well want it back.  I have tried asking myself nicely, but I am not playing, so to speak.  I know that it is all down to me.  I want to make myself feel better by grabbing my guitar and flooding my empty parts with music.  But I won't let myself.  It is too damned easy to not bother.  

If I do manage to get as far as picking one up, it is too damned easy for my mind to fill with the conviction that it is sounding awful and I should give up.  I need to play through this, I need to get involved in some sort of musical collaboration with others so that the creativity can flow between us and be amplified like in the cavity of a laser, reflecting back and forth and growing stronger with each pass.  

Of course, organising this takes the sort of energy that the depression steals away.  Depression, I feel, (and may well have mentioned before) seems to have a self-preservation instinct that tries to stop you acting to lessen its effects.

There have been small signs that I remember where my creativity is - I have been experimenting with odd tunings, and tiny fragments of passably ok new music have been emerging.  I have even been using my phone to keep these pieces for when my muse has returned sufficiently for them to be of use.  There are embers, but the flame is not yet returned.

I will though take strength from my family and friends and try to get my fire burning strongly again, because I know that when it does, it helps to make the rest of my pie/world shine that much more brightly.