The Middle: The Weight of 100 Stone: Depression I

When I was sixteen years old, I wanted to die. More accurately, I didn't want to live anymore. There's a difference: it's subtle, but if you're being precise, no one actually wants to go through the process of dying, right? Nevertheless, it seemed that the best way to "not live anymore" was to die. And the only way that seemed likely was for me to take matters into my own hands.

You could ask what precipitated such an extreme and irreversible plan of action in a young woman whose entire future stretched out ahead of her, all the opportunity in the world waiting there for her to pluck like so much low-hanging fruit. But I couldn't tell you. Not because of any sense of privacy. I just didn't know.

It seemed I'd always been a solitary child, slightly out of step with the rest of the kids, whether in a neighborhood game of Kick the Can, or in school. Yeah, I alway felt like a weirdo in school.

Finally, by the time I hit sixteen, I'd had enough. -- I don't really remember what happened next. I can tell you there were no dramatic Hollywood moments of ambulance lights flashing or paramedics working furiously to resuscitate me. -- Somehow I must've told my dad, who was a social worker, before I actually "tried anything." And the next thing I knew, my butt was parked in a chair across from my very first therapist, a miracle worker named Ellen. I cried the entire first hour I sat in that chair. I doubt I was able to utter even two coherent words during our first session together.

Fast forward -- like, a lot -- and here I am, thirty-five years later, and still struggling. I've traveled many paths -- medications, exercise, diet, meditation, therapy -- and they all lead back here. It's something I live with and probably always will. Some days it's still nearly paralyzing in its severity.

So when I heard of a social art project called 100Stone taking place right here in my own town of Anchorage, it drew my attention. The lead artist, Sarah Davies, herself has struggled with depression -- not just the effects of the disease on her body but also the social .... I'll use the term "pariah-hood"... that accompanies it. She describes feelings of loneliness and shame for this illness -- a genuine illness -- that affected her for many years. To her, it felt at times like the weight of a bull on her shoulders. (Thus the title of the project -- Not one hundred stones, but a British weight unit of one stone, which is about fourteen pounds. One hundred stone is about fourteen hundred pounds, or the weight of a bull.)

I most certainly cannot express the sentiments of the artists better than they do themselves, so I'll merely "cut and paste" their own words from their website:

"Part of this project is the elucidation and demystification of our conditions, and normalization of our experiences. In order to do this we must join in solidarity to shed our shame so we might be a catalyst of change in the cultural attitudes that keep those of us who experience emotionally burdensome conditions isolated and fearful. It is your truth that will empower someone in need to reach beyond their closets into the light. Whether you tell it in word or symbol, revealing it is the key."

The project itself (which you can read more about here: http://www.100stoneproject.com) consists of casting forms of individuals from communities all over Alaska, people who answered Sarah's call. For you Alaskans reading this, 100Stone contains work drawn from the communities of Talkeetna, Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Tok, Glenallen, McCarthy, Valdez, Wasilla, Palmer, Seward, Homer, Bethel, Sitka, Juneau and Girdwood, as well as Anchorage.

Another excerpt from the project website:

"Each figure is sculpted from and by people who have been directly affected by persistent emotional pressures, working in burlap, plaster, cement, and straw. They are the physical encapsulation of hundreds of unique experiences of vulnerability resulting from circumstances such as traumas, grief, chronic illness, mental illness, and substance abuse and our powerful stories of resilience in the face of the marathon that is self-care and management."

Of course, with my own personal history, this touched me. Trauma? Check. Grief, illness? Check, check. Resilience? Well, I don't know. That's a daily struggle. I try.

I somehow missed the timing for the opportunity to have my own figure cast, to have told my own story by that medium, though I just found out that one of the figures I was handling today was that of an old coworker of mine. Not unlike many of us who struggle with depression, even I would never have guessed she was my sister in this battle. She's a cheery ray of sunshine any time she enters a room, always, it seems, seeing the best in everyone and in the world. Which just proves the point, I suppose: hidden, unmentionable. Public face vs private self.

This weekend, the finished 100Stone sculptures were moved to their exhibition area, a part of Anchorage called Point Woronzof, which slopes down to a type of "beach" referred to as "mud flats." From the time one arrives in Anchorage, urban legends abound of people being trapped in the quicksand-like mud flats and either being rescued or dying as the tide rushed in over them. A fitting place, then, for one hundred figures struggling under the weight of their burdens.

Fittingly, it was a dreary day, Anchorage's first real snowstorm of the season had passed through the night before, and supposedly the sunrise happened around 9am (though there was no sun to be seen among the swirling flakes and low-hanging clouds). Nevertheless, a group of maybe two dozen volunteers gathered in a pre-project huddle, decked out in puffy coats, Carhartts and bunny boots (nonAlaskans might need to look that one up) before starting the process of moving the figures from the backs of flatbed trucks (they'd been transported from the studio the night before) down to the mudflats.

Another group of volunteers had already suffered the elements, two weeks prior, to dig out and install the mounting stakes which were already buried several feet into the ground.

Today, the figures were mounted on those stakes by a combination of physics, tripods, winches, and sheer human effort.

Needless to say, it was an impressively coordinated and executed operation. Nearly all the figures were moved and mounted within the first two hours.

But of course I was there helping out for another reason than just unadulterated volunteerism. I had an ulterior motive, if you will. These figures? They're my brethren. The people who casted the statues had suffered, as I had suffered. I was not merely moving objects, or even pieces of valuable art (which, with all the time, effort and creativity involved, they certainly are that, as well). Each time I moved a figure, it felt alive to me. I felt like I was touching a vulnerable part of someone's life that they had bravely chosen to share with hundreds or thousands of strangers. The figures very quickly became "him"s and "her"s: "Watch out for her arm!" "There's too much pressure on his head, roll him to the left a bit." Not just me -- I heard it from the other volunteers, as well.

There was some "standing around time" as we waited for trailers to shuttle between parking lots, so I got a bit chatty with some of the other volunteers. I was surprised to discover that most people were there "just because." None of them (I asked) had struggled with depression themselves. They just thought it sounded like a cool thing to be involved with, which (in my opinion) it certainly is that, too.

Nevertheless, there was one young guy who was joking with his friends. "They look like zombies!" he laughed. I probably should have minded my own business, but in what I hope was the spirit of sharing, I gently offered, "It feels like that sometimes." I was staring off at the statues, intentionally not looking at him, but I could tell by not only his silence but the quieting of his friends that perhaps I had overstepped, had rained on the parade of a bunch of young toughs who were just trying to do a little volunteer work. But, overwhelmed by the mood of the day and what I interpret as part of the meaning of the piece -- even if it only means that to me -- it's important to understand how the world is for those of us who struggle.

So I kept going, just a bit, gently, gently: "Sometimes it feels like you're a zombie, walking under this burden that no one else can see, that everyone around you is normal and happy, and why can't you just be like them, all happy & jolly?" A pause. "But then the next day is better. And so you just keep going." -- I walked off, then, to give them the chance to remark on my social inappropriateness, if they desired. But maybe -- just maybe -- one of those young toughs already knows what I was talking about. Maybe he feels like a zombie sometimes, too.

And so I walked on. And as I walked among the figures, I again felt the stories of their models crying out to me. So many different faces. So many different stories.

Some of the figures seemed hopeful, looking skyward.

Or striving to move forward:

Others seemed not to be faring as well, struggling... struggling...

A couple of the figures were paired, with a child, perhaps -- comforting? Being comforted? Struggling together?

This one crushes me:

He's barely keeping his head above water. And maybe when the tide comes in high, he won't. And maybe worth discussing, as well.

We don't all make it. One hundred stone is a lot of weight to carry day in and day out. More than a fragile human heart can manage some days.

But in the sharing, in the acceptance and awareness, in the support and love of friends and family and community, we can help each other leave that bull by the side of the road.