In 2003, my family weathered a series of medical crises. First, me, the oldest of four children. I went in for my annual mammogram, not expecting the call back, the paralyzing fear, the frenzied round of appointments, and the resulting diagnosis of breast cancer. I was fortunate to have my mom with me at each appointment, listening, helping me to decide what to do. She and my dad were also present when I had two surgeries (margins not clear after the first). Prognosis - excellent - cancer caught at a very early stage. Relief. Life goes on. A blessing - an answered prayer.

Just as I was about to begin a series of radiation treatments, my mom became very ill and was medivaced from the small town where my parents lived to a large teaching hospital in a city an hour away from her home. It was the night before Easter. My sister and I rushed to be there to find out what was happening. The world stopped spinning. She had an acute form of leukemia. Chances were very slim that treatment would put her into remission, but she bravely opted to go for it. A month later she died in hospice, with my dad at her side.

While I would not have wished for my diagnosis, it was an answer to another prayer. My parents lived busy, full lives, and I did not see them as often as I would have liked. I wanted to spend more time with my mom and because of my health, she was with me often in person and by phone, a blessing then - an even greater blessing in light of her very unexpected illness and death so soon after. I received a gift of her time that my three siblings could not share. A blessing and a blow - the answers to prayer are not always simple.

Another crisis. Six weeks later my brother-in-law called. My youngest sister had been taken by Flight for Life to the same teaching hospital that had treated my mom. An aneurysm in her brain burst, leaving her tentatively hanging onto life. The prognosis was not good. The neurosurgeon did not expect her to live. If she did, he expected that her life would be greatly diminished because of the damage to her brain. When her sister-in-law and I arrived at the hospital the next morning for the surgery, the nurse told us that an elderly blonde woman was already there and was in the waiting room. We could not think of who the women could be. The only family member matching that description was my mom. No one was in the waiting room. After surgery, several weeks in an induced coma, and several more weeks of rehab, my sister returned home, able to return to her family, her home, and even, eventually, her work on a part-time basis. Another blessing - prayers answered.

 And a question - was my mom there to intercede for my sister? Had my sister died, my dad would have died of a broken heart. Losing my mom and one of his children in so short a period of time would have overcome his own frail health.

 When we ask, we don't always get the answers we expect. God's ways remain mysterious - but ultimately good.

A young man with brain cancer, who even after four surgeries and a stroke, is one of the most alive and hope-filled people I've ever known.

The blog of his young wife, who - somehow - keeps her priorities straight and her head on her shoulders as she manages to be a wife, mother, caretaker, and employee and so very much more.

The funeral of a friend's father - a man whose love was eminent in those attending the celebration of his life. 

The laughter of children playing on the sidewalk in front of my house, on one of the first nice spring days.

The setting sun glowing through the tender foliage of shrubs and flowers in my back garden.

The responses to the last blog challenge - How to . . .

A review of Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich.

The squeak of the backdoor, letting me know my husband has arrived home from work

The pithy saying inside the wrapper from the piece of Dove chocolate I had for dessert today.

I wonder what will inspire me tomorrow?

Dr. Eric Maisel is the author of The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person's Path to Depression. My blog today consists of several questions and Dr. Maisel's responses, as well as my thoughts about what he has to say.

Q. Dr. Maisel, can you tell us what the Van Gogh Blues is about?

 EM: For more than 25 years, I've been looking at the realities of the creative life and the make-up of the creative person in books like Fearless Creating, Creativity for Life, Coaching the Artist Within, and lots of others. A certain theme or idea began to emerge: that creative people are people who stand in relation to life in a certain way - they see themselves as active meaning-makes rather than as passive folks with no stake in the world and no inner potential to realize. This orientation makes meaning a certain kind of problem for them - if, in their own estimation, they aren't making sufficient meaning, they get down. I began to see that this "simple" dynamic helped explain why so many creative people - I would say all of us at one time or another time - get the blues. To say this more crisply, it seemed to me that the depression that we see in creative people was best conceptualized as existential depression, rather than as biological, psychological, or social depression. This meant that the treatment had to be existential in nature. You could medicate a depressed artist but you probably weren't really getting at what was bothering him, namely that the meaning had leaked out of his life and that, as a result, he was just going through the motions, paralyzed by his meaning crisis.

I'm very drawn to the idea that creative people need to make meaning in their lives. It rings true for me. I was diagnosed with biological depression nearly 20 years ago. Medication helps. However, throughout my life, I've felt a call to DO something with my life. The problem is that I can't figure out what. Not yet anyway. I've looked at different aspects of my life and made changes. If those things don't work, I think and reflect and work and listen and try another way. I hope that the things I do as well as the things I don't do are preparing me to answer some call, but perhaps there is more meaning in the life I currently lead than I recognize. Or maybe my call is to continue to struggle through everything that threatens to pull me down in the quicksand of depression. Or maybe I haven't yet faced this most important issue. Maybe the journey I've chosen allows me to escape my call. I could be headed in the wrong direction. Maybe the medications have kept the depression at bay, but if I'd been addressing the meaning question all this time I'd be in a different place in my journey, one that feels more like home (although I don't expect that finding meaning in my life means ease or comfort).

Q. So you're saying that a person who decides, for whatever reason, that she is going to be a "meaning maker," is more likely to get depressed by virtue of that very decision. In addition to telling herself that she matters and that her creative work matters, what else should she do to "keep meaning afloat" in her life? What else helps?

E.M: I think is is a great help just to have a "vocabulary of meaning" and to have language to use so that you know what is going on in your life. If you can't accurately name a thing, it is very hard to think about that thing. That's why I present a whole vocabulary of meaning in The Van Gogh Blues and introduce ideas and phrases like "meaning effort," "meaning drain," "meaning container," and many others. When we get a rejection letter, we want to be able to say, "Oh, this is a meaning threat to my life as a novelist" and instantly reinvest meaning in our decision to write novels, because if we don't think that way and speak that way, it is terribly easy to let that rejection letter precipitate a meaning crisis and get us seriously blue. By reminding ourselves that it is our job not only to make meaning but also to maintain meaning when it is threatened, we get in the habit of remembering that we and we alone are in charge of keeping meaning afloat - no one else will do that for us. Having a vocabulary of meaning available to talk about these matters is a crucial part of the process.

As a writer, I find meaning in words. I hope that a vocabulary of meaning will help me to understand and maintain the meaning in my life.

Q. What I hear you saying is that when creative people in particular maintain a connection to their mission or purpose (you call it a Life Purpose Statement in VGB), a connection to the value of their work, and their own value as creative people in the culture, they will be stronger in their work and in their lives. Is that a fair way to put it?

EM: Yes. Even before you can make meaning, you must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your own life and fashion a central connection with yourself, one that is more aware, active, and purposeful than the connection most people fashion with themselves. Having some ideas about purpose is not the same as standing in relationship to yourself in such a way that you turn your ideas about purpose into concrete actions. Self-connection - understanding that you are your own advocate, taskmaster, coach, best friend, and sole arbiter of meaning and that no one else can or will serve those functions for you - is crucial.

I know myself well, but I'm rather hard on myself. I hope that as I work with the ideas in this book, I can become better integrated and that being connected with myself in a kinder way will also help with meaning and depression. I haven't finished readng the book yet, but I think it's one I'll be reading and working through for a long time. I need to do the work if I want a meaning-filled life. It isn't just going to happen to me. I'm also going to have to get myself past the anti-God theme that runs throughout the book. Dr. Maisel is an athiest and anti-religionist. I have to sift out what I can't use, because there is so much of value here, even for a committed Catholic like me.

Next stop on the virtual book tour - Billizetti's World on March 8.

I've been treated for depression for many years, and probably should have been for many years before that. There was a time when I saw depression as a curse and an enemy. The pain was sometimes overwhelming. But over the years, I've come to see that depression has brought me many blessings as well. It's not only part of who I am; it's helped to shape me.

Sometimes that shaping has been scary and difficult, but the insight that comes from walking that road, has, I believe made me a better person, more resilient, more open to new experiences, more ready to take on life's next challenge (and sometimes those seem to come fast and heavy, don't they?).

Depression isn't just a deep well filled with sadness. The self-knowledge it's brought me is a deep well from which to draw many things including faith, courage, introspection, sensitivity, and empathy.  My best writing and art come from that place. I can best express myself when I allow any pain to surface along with my other emotions.

The light that shines on my outlook on life, my relationships, my work, my hopes, my dreams is touched by that bit of sadness that remains, even though the depression is well-controlled now. I'll continue to walk my life's journey with depression as a companion, maybe not always liked, but accepted - after all, it's helped to make me who I am.

I'm testing my new page for readability. It's been fun setting this up this page. I'm learning the blog site ropes.