Beautiful Dawn

Her hair could have be mistaken for a home perm over baked. Its naturally tight curls clamped around her apple face, giving her a sort of Shirley Temple look without the bounce. "Do you feel that once you have emerged from phases of depression, that you are left with nuggets?"

"Nuggets?" I knew what she meant, but I was stalling for time.

"Yeah, something that pulled you through, a new understanding, wisdom, something that you wouldn't have learned otherwise."

I already knew my answer. But just in case I was being too rash, I paused to think. What has pulled me through? Am I even through? Am I simply being irrational? "No, no nuggets. Not really. I feel so empty right now. The thing that pulls me through is time. Sometimes that's all I have to cling to. I convince myself that what I am feeling will eventually go away. And I wait."

I know life functions in opposites. Without dark, we do not appreciate light. Without heartache, there is no heart joy. And something about finding nuggets through the low times in our lives seems right.

Just the day before we were at the Museum of Natural History looking at an exhibit on pearls and their divers. The odds of finding pearls are 10,000 to 1. Diving puts enormous stress on the body because the depth at which these little white spheres lay, and if that wasn't enough to discourage divers, there are sharks and other dangers deep in the water. But people still dive because the pearl is esteemed as precious. Depression is like diving for pearls. It is perilous, and the odds of discovery are slim, but only through ascending the depths can we emerge with wisdom. At least this is my new outlook, inspired by a lovely lady with golden curls.