Autrefois, je n’aimais pas Kate Bush, je n’avais pas encore compris…

Take that, stratus cloud!

MP3: Wild Nothing – Cloudbusting

I’ve been trying to write something here for about ten minutes, but I just keep listening to this song. Meh, join me in adoring Wild Nothing’s cover of Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting.”

Here is the original version of “Cloudbusting.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRHA9W-zExQ

Many thanks to R.T. for telling me about this song.

I think I have reverse seasonal affective disorder, if it exists. Fall and winter are when I’m my happiest (and often most manic). Especially during the holidays, I actually love the holidays.

I guess I’m the only bipolar person who does.

Spring and summer are when I’m miserable. I’m really feeling good starting in September (because I know fall is coming) all the way through the new year, but I usually crash with depression on January 1st. I guess it’s because the whirlwind party of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s is over?

But my depression doesn’t last too long, because my birthday is March 7th, so I have something else to look forward to in March. Maybe I’m also the only bipolar person who likes her birthday?

But the sun and warmth of spring and summer keeps me at a pretty stable level of melancholy.

This morning I woke up and it was thundering and raining. It’s been sunny for a while, but when I saw what it looked like outside (and I especially love when it’s storming) I felt, for the first time in weeks, like actually getting out of bed. But the sun same out pretty soon after, and I got really depressed again.

So I guess I have some kind of reverse seasonal affective disorder or something? I’ve asked doctors and shrinks and no one seems to know what I’m talking about. Apparently it’s really atypical.

And then it makes me wonder – why is my blog called Cloudbusting?

But you know, it’s when you actually bust the clouds that it starts raining (and that’s what the Kate Bush song says) and the rain and storms really make me feel better.

answer: 1, if she’s manic.

0, if she’s depressed

Sorry this is so short, I’m not feeling up to posting a long entry. Jayson and I broke up

More bipolar in the media: Next to Normal

“Next to Normal is a musical with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt. Its story concerns a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effect that her illness has on her family. The play also addresses such issues as grieving a loss, suicide, drug abuse, ethics in modern psychiatry, and suburban life.”

I wish I could go see it. It sounds like it may be a lot like my book, but I’m not sure. If anyone has seen it please comment, I’d love to find out more about it…

It won the 2009 Tony Award for ‘Best Original Score.’

Carrie Fisher has bipolar

Apparently she’s been vocal about this for some time. Like 8 years. I’d say I can’t imagine how I missed it, but then again, I’ve only recently really started noticing bipolar in the media, since I’ve been writing my book. Plus my mom is really big on pointing bipolar out to me all the time now, which is nice. She’s a therapist, so she does that anyway, plus she’s my mom, so it’s her job to clip newspaper articles for me.

I’ve been noticing more and more bipolar stuff all over the media lately.

It’s really good, maybe people won’t be so creeped out when I tell them I have it.

I’m still not comfortable enough to tell my coworkers and clients yet though. People still think you’re crazy if you tell them you have bipolar. They act like you won’t do your job well if you have it, or you’re completely unreliable, and you’re just going to take off in a car and drive across the country as soon as you get manic. Or you’re going to kill yourself in the middle of a big project. That really sucks.

I even sometimes think if I get my book published, would I be able to tell my coworkers if they haven’t seen it in some bookstore? Would I get fired?

I mean, I’m medicated, but people just don’t get it.

But thank you, Carrie Fisher, for being another person who’s come out of the bipolar closet! I for one, really appreciate it.

I refuse to let that agent rejection get me down.

I’m turning it into a positive – almost all the agents who said no (mostly to my query letter) also said they encourage me to seek representation elsewhere.

I’ve just emailed all the agents who rejected me, including her, and asked them if they can recommend any other agents.

Maybe something good will come of it. Maybe I’ll get another lead. If nothing else, I’ve got all my pride and strength back.

Any agency would be damned lucky to have me. Someone will figure that out.

I’m pretty depressed today. I didn’t get much sleep, so I’ve got grogginess weighing me down. But it’s mostly because I keep thinking about what the agent who rejected me said:

“Dear Carrie, Thanks so much for sending these pages to me. It’s an interesting and moving story and you are a good writer – and yet the bar is so high with memoirs these days, especially on topics that have already been written about, and by people who aren’t known already in some way, that I just don’t think the writing and storytelling are quite at a level where I could confidently go out with this to the big publishers. It’s very possible another agent will feel differently and want to take this on. I wish you the best with your work.”

When I got the email last week, I was surprised at my ability to almost effortlessly let it roll off my back. I knew that logically, it really didn’t matter. That’s just one person’s opinion. But now I can’t shake the self-doubt and the feeling that no matter what, she’s also an expert.

I keep telling myself that I picked the wrong time to try to publish, since the publishing industry is falling apart and has no money, and very few manuscripts are getting picked up right now.

I keep reminding myself of the most important point: This is a memoir. You’re not supposed to have to whole thing written before you try to get an agent. That’s what every book I’ve read says, and what 4 published authors and 2 agents told me. She asked for the first 100 pages. I didn’t have the first 100 pages written yet. She read my first 20 and liked it enough to ask for 100, but she told me to throw out the first 20 and start with something different. So I had to scramble and throw together 100 pages before she forgot about me. It was rushed. I busted my ass to get it together for her. She may not have rejected it had she asked for say, 50 pages. It wouldn’t have been so rushed.

I have nothing else to say right now. I’m not going to try to scrounge up some positive final thought to end this post with. I’m upset. I’m sad. End of story.

Well, I was rejected by the first agent. But you know Stephen King was rejected dozens of times when he started out… I know this will happen. I’m going to make it happen.

I’m going to start writing articles for the DBSA Atlanta newsletter.

My 100 pages was successfully delivered to the agents this morning! Whew!

Now I can finally relax.

Jayson and I are doing a 7-day detox, nothing but raw fruits and vegetables, no meat, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, drugs (except my meds, I’m not stopping those for anything), or smoking (don’t do that anyway, quit 2 & 1/2 years ago.) Oh and when I quit smoking, I used Wellbutrin, which unfortunately threw me into mania. Wellbutrin is not good for someone who has bipolar unless you’re also on a mood stabilizer. Dopamine overload.

It will be nice to meditate and relax, clear my system and breathe. I’m thinking positive thoughts. *I will get published* *I will be a successful author*

I’ve finished the first 100 pages of my memoir, Cloudbusting. I polished up the outline and I’m heading to the UPS store tomorrow to mail it to the agents who requested it. 

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Here’s the new location: http://bustingclouds.wordpress.com

And yes, you are in the correct location right now. You just might want to bookmark this new URL.

It’s no longer called Darkness & Light. Since the official working title of my bipolar book is Cloudbusting, what better title for my blog than “Busting Clouds”?

Oh, and the blog name cloudbusting was already taken…

CNN’s latest on bipolar: When a parent is bipolar, kids are at risk too

So this article tells me:

“This study in no way should be a reason for someone with bipolar not to have children”

and yet I’ve got this staring me in the face:

“Children and teens who have a parent with bipolar disorder are 14 times more likely than their peers to have bipolar-like symptoms themselves, and are two to three times more likely to be found to have an anxiety or mood disorder, such as depression.”

Strangely enough, I was literally just now writing the section in my book, about how I’m afraid to have kids even though I really want them.

I found this article because I was looking up stats for the genetics and heredity and all that, and this was the first thing that came up.

It was published on March 3rd, which coincidentally is my fiance’s birthday.

Go figure.

♫ I just know that something good is going to happen…♫

While living just after college with my family in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, 1985-1986, I saw an unforgettable pop video of mythic, fairy-tale register for the song “Cloudbusting” , by the English musician Kate Bush. I did a double-take when I saw her co-star, Donald Sutherland (pictured in embed):

The song is a look at a special relationship between a boy and his father. It describes psychologist Wilhelm Reich’s arrest and imprisonment through the eyes of his young son, Peter. Reich’s son later wrote his father’s story in the book A Book Of Dreams, published in 1973, on which the song is based. Wilhelm Reich is the inventor of the cloudbuster. A cloudbuster is a rain machine that looks very much like the machine that is pictured on the cover of this single.

The music video, directed by Julian Doyle was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush playing the part of his young son, Peter. In the UK it was shown at some cinemas as an accompaniment to the main feature.

I never saw the video again until this morning, almost 25 years later.

It was worth the wait. And fullscreen playback is a must.

Thank you, YouTube, and thank you, Mystwalkers, for uploading it.

Here are two short interviews with Bush about the song and video.

I was viewing one of the recent DVD releases of the early seasons of Saturday Night Live the other day. These are great seasons, not only because of the classic talent assembled – Bill Murray, Dan Akyroyd, John Belushi, etc., but also because of the music that appeared.

The early seasons featured Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Grateful Dead and many others.

The one I watched featured a very rare appearance by Kate Bush (she doesn’t do too many live appearances) – performing “The Man with the Child in his Eyes.”

It served as a great reminder as to how great Kate Bush really is. I dug out the old recordings and started diving back into her music. In doing so, I uncovered a documentary on the album “Hounds of Love.”

It’s probably not for a casual fan, but if you’re into how music is made and recorded, you’ll find it very interesting.

They dissect the entire album, song-for-song, and in some cases, note-for-note.

The only disappointment is that they didn’t interview Kate Bush for it (I’m guessing she declined… again, known for her privacy).

There’s a lot of great Kate Bush music out there. “Big Sky,” included here, is from “Hounds of Love.”

I’m also including “Sat in Your Lap,” because it appears in the documentary, I always liked the song and the video is a great, vintage 80s art video.

If I were a painter I would paint only clouds. I would rig my canvas on the washing line so I could lie underneath like a mechanic, capturing the clouds in their race to the horizon. I would infuriate the lady at the art shop by buying her white paint in bulk and sometimes her blue. Other artists would come in and point and whisper, muttering underneath their breath at my singular subject matter and how their skin tones remained dark because of my white paint stockpile.

‘ You can’t stop me,’ I’d say. ‘ I’m on a mission.’

On days when sunlight suffused my eyes and my pupils swelled, I would grab the ladder and climb the stringybark tree, conversing briefly with the wood pigeons before surveying the clouds. One of my famous paintings would be Clouds Thru The Branches. People would clamour like housewives at a shoe sale to buy it, offering me exorbitant sums. I would give it free to a person with a brim on his hat as blue as the sky.

A poet I had never met would win a literary prize based on my series in oils – Cumulus is next to Godliness. He would be witty and profound at the same time. I would go to his book launch and sit in cognito up the back, too shy to meet him, even though I had fallen in love with him a little bit.

I would get a cat. Fluffy and white. I would call him Cirrhus. He would lie in the sun looking like his fur was made of clouds caught by hunters in the sky.

I would listen to music with woodwind and strings, invoking the spirits of the air, asking them to fill the skies with angel’s hair.

I would imagine castles, flowers, entire magical worlds in the air.  The wind touching them with awe, reverence. I would come to believe that clouds were evidence other worlds exist.

Sadly, I cannot paint. My ability to catalogue clouds is limited. But I can sleep on  downy pillows, counting clouds like sheep.

{Image by Rattattart at Deviant Art.}