You Cannot Be Depressed When You Are Grateful

You cannot be depressed
when you are grateful
his words exit the -3 degree Celsius air
and freeze the world around me
that’s it
that’s the key
the key to the problem
I may never solve
but try
for we do not save them
people save themselves
or they stop
and we just pray
they don’t stop themselves

but we can guide them
guiding them is my part time job
and I will no longer do it
sitting with depression in the chair next to me
I will do it
ripping in a small plane
through a field of yellow wheat at dusk
with her in the passenger seat
eyes gleaming
as we take off
into the sky
and move
up
up
up
and circle around the purple lupins
and the mountains that are blue and cold
and the engine in this thing
roars in the cold
and her eyes are wide
in gratitude
as she digests the geese flying south
and the cows like small specks below
and the pink sky as the sun waves her last goodbye wildly
and suddenly
depression is so far away
yelling to be heard
but she cannot hear it
for all she can feel in her heart
is joy
and that
is how we heal it

my brain finishes
and I welcome in the voices
in the hot springs
and the drip drop
of the melting snow
and the warmth in my body

the epiphanies
never happen when we are sitting at a desk
forcing and pushing them to come through
they happen
while sitting next to a 70 year old man
in a nude hot spring
in the middle of Oregon
that’s where the miracles happen
and life makes sense of itself

yet us control freaks try and shove insights in neat
and cleaned
and controlled boxes
so it is safe
and we never find it this way
yet we try
again
and
again
turning ourselves insane
bumping our heads into the same walls we know are empty of the answers we tirelessly seek

it takes putting yourself in the places
that make you feel uncomfortable
(Nudist hot springs)
and strangers
dropping a sentence
in hours of conversations
that they have no idea
will be the solution
to the problem I stay awake
and swear at the stars for not solving.