Throw roses into the abyss and say:
'Here is my thanks to the monster
who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.’

Friederich Nietzsche

Depression is near impossible to talk about. Especially in the middle of it. I’ve tried to give some language to it at times and feel like I’ve done a great disservice.

Depression is also near impossible not to talk about. Especially in the middle of it. I’ve tried to not speak of it, too, and that also feels like a great disservice.

We can compartmentalize so many things in our lives, and often do, subconsciously, so that we can get on with it. Life is for living, after all, and god knows there’s shit to do: work, bills, kids to school, laundry, groceries, appointments, all the things. It is enough just to live in times like these. Who can downshift fast enough or often enough to think about deeper things? Who has the bandwidth to contemplate life itself? Who has the courage to go toe-to-toe with the abyss and live to tell the story? Who has the luxury of going mad with the questions and finally coming to some existential peace. To live in some measure of denial is what allows us to get anything done and get through the day.

And yet, depression seeps into every facet of life. If you know, you know. It’s an invisible, insidious vapor that both breathes into all of life and simultaneously sucks life from every moment. To ignore it is folly. To pretend it away is a losing game. This fog refuses to be contained or denied.

But this is where art shows up.

One winter afternoon, in a state of existential exhaustion and profound mental pain, I reached for a small scrap of fabric I’d been patch-working together. I grabbed the nearest thread and needle and began mark-making with red lines on the old linens. Without pausing or planning, questioning or answering, I stitched. Eventually, the sun set behind thick clouds and the threads within my reach ran out. That felt like a finishing place.

I set the piece down and sighed. It was the first time I was actually seeing what I had made. And as I ran my fingers over the ripples of red marks, the boulder that had been pressing down on my shoulders felt a little lighter. The sharp edge of ache pushed a little less into my left side, too, and I breathed deeper into the cavern around my heart. The linen and thread didn’t solve everything. They didn’t solve anything. They didn't change my pathological circumstances. But they also didn’t need anything from me. And there was a respite in that. A balm. Unlike pretty much everything else in my life, the linen and thread made no demands and no judgments. And they didn’t ask me to make sense or make meaning or fix anything. I could just make stitches for the sake of stitches.

As I took photos of the piece, I realized these stitches are a language for my depression, a language that gives expression to that which is both above and below all the words. I don’t want to admit it because, as a lover of words, I like to think that there’s nothing a well-written essay can’t solve or convey. But sometimes we come to the end of ourselves, don’t we? Our ego and our clever go-to solutions melt in the feral heat of that void and we are invited to find an embodied language that speaks fluently of safety, keeping, and maybe even rest.

Stitching has once again given me a language to speak with my deepest griefs and pain, a practice I’m calling threads in the void. I feel honored that I get to share a bit of it with you here. Please do reach out to me if you want to connect about this collective. I would love to hear about any art you’ve created in the void. You can message me directly or post your art on Instagram with the hashtag #threadsinthevoid so anyone following the tag is sure to see it.

And please do take care of yourself, friend. You are not alone in this.