So many people in my family are being watched by the tiger and I wonder if I too am being watched but just can't see him. Did I find another place to live where the tiger does not roam? Is he outside my window but I only see the trees and shadows that hide his stripes? I think I know he is there and he will finally get me but in the meantime, I pretend I am safe. I am safe if I don't see him.
Each time I read the poem, I am thankful for 30 years of marriage to someone who is not like Uncle. Rich's words are so clever and illustrate the way love can sometimes both free and limit us. Having a spouse who values my art and expression is a gift I appreciate very much.
Your poem reminds me of Blake's "Tyger" who is frightening, beautiful, and created by the same force that creates the lamb. The dark lair is perhaps where much of great art is created--including your poem and so much of your writing.
I am also reminded of Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" and the prancing tigers locked in her art. They demonstrate her fear and frustration, but they also show her potential for creativity and communication. Great art is perhaps somewhere in the balance among fear, pain, dreams, light, dark, and hope.
Thanks for making me think and for giving all of us so many wonderful pieces of art.
I couldn’t help but think of my dear old mom when I read your piece, and about things the echo in myself, thoughts that linger.
My mom called herself Mort, not because of the translation to death, it’s short for her maiden name, Mortensen.
Mort dealt with her teeter-totter bipolar emotional division her whole life. When I was in high school in the Sixties, after late night screaming matches, my dad had her committed to Napa State Mental Hospital, a sad place that I only visited once.
I was reading Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the time and she was living in the book’s setting.
It wasn’t easy forgiving my dad, but he stood by her in his own way. He had heard about lithium treatment, which had shown success in England, and tried in vain to get her in an experimental trial over here, but it was still stuck in our med system.
Around the time I was getting out of high school and leaving home (finally) the US legalized lithium treatment.
Mort always said it saved her life. She took it for a long long time, more than 50 years, and it allowed her to live a somewhat normal life, albeit with less highs and lows. She called it her emotional keel.
In my life, I was always aware of my bipolar tendencies. My little brother was not as lucky as me: he went beyond a little crazy at various times. He tried lithium, but it wrecked his kidneys, and he stopped.
He had moved East at some point so I haven’t been able to watch over his mental health treatment. He has help, but not good help, and they try to help him with various drug cocktails. They usually keep him down and he spends too much time watching game shows with his little dog in his lap.
And me? When I was in high school I discovered cannabis, and psychedelics. I didn’t think of what I was doing as self-medication, but that’s what it was. I just thought of it as “getting high.” And I managed to steer clear of downers, particularly heroin, which took a few good friends. Marijuana became my friend, and her brother hashish. They’ve remained with me after my own sixty years plus, smoking and lately vaping.
Psychedelics opened my mind and I left the door to perception open. Lately that means occasionally micro-dosing mushrooms.
In her waning years, my mom dealt with the loss of my dad and moved nearby me. We pooled our money and bought a little house with a mother-in-law attachment, and my wife and I watched over her in the next stage of her life.
That meant watching over her meds. We didn’t get much help from psychiatrists; we live in a rural community where there aren’t many around.
She had a doctor she liked, but she wasn’t really trained on geriatrics or the complexities of mental health treatment. I found that as she hit her nineties and her decline accelerated, the intricate balance required for lithium was crucial.
Her doc didn’t know what to do. I called every psychiatrist around and got almost no help.
In the end, she basically decided she was done. I kept trying and finally got her an appointment with the psyche doc at a local clinic. Sadly, the day set for her to see him was the day she died.
She left an unused bottle of lithium behind, which I’ve kept on my desk to remind me of something that saved her. And I suppose just in case I ever need a keel as I sail through life.
Sorry if I rambled on, but sometimes I need to unload through letting my thoughts flow.
I’m left with echos of Blake, “burning bright / in the forests of the night…”
Oh, there is so much heartbreak and love in your post. I'm not sure how to respond other than to say your story helps me see the world in larger ways. I think your mother and my mother would've had a great time together, scaring and loving us in equal measure.
I know many of them over the past 20 years. I often tried to write letters to them so that I could try to explain them to medical professionals somehow. I’m sure these works will help a lot of people coming to terms with diagnoses, who are learning to tame their own animals walking beside them. Well done.
Thank you, Nikki. Last many (or most or nearly all) bipolar people, I resisted medical treatment for years and years. I'd been diagnosed bipolar 12 years ago but I pretty much did the minimum. I went to therapy on an irregular basis but even then I didn't share the extent of my emotional extremes. But I've accepted it now and I work hard to tame the tigers.
That is excellent. I live with bipolar, too, though the diagnosis has varied at times. Managing symptoms is extensively hard work, but can be done. Glad you’re talking about it. Important stuff.
Dysthymia is my riddle. I think it might be my Nimiipuu father’s riddle too.
Whatever the case, we didn’t talk about mental health issues until about 12 years ago, because to speak of mental illness meant one was speaking of being broken, damaged, weak, and "not Native."
I stand tall today as a Nimiipuu man with flaws that include bipolar disorder and OCD, but also include creativity unbridled, musicality unique to me in such a way as to have turned my neurodiversity into a prosperous career. But mostly...
I don’t care about being depressed. I care about shining as much as I can.
How can one live in this culture honestly without depression? Especially as an artist who isn't content with glibness and surface? I don't think that is possible... it's the duration and whether it descends to despair that is crippling. I have lived there too.
But ... truly.... without the tigers, if there were only gentleness, just stoic sheep or mild lambs, wouldn't you be missing something? Don't you require the predatory passion of those tigers?
What an incredible metaphor that opens a door into better understanding. Great, gritty poem, Sherman. And, looking at the photograph while you read it, I couldn't help thinking. How beautiful the tiger is. Thank you!
An almost mystical look at tigers. Thank you.
Beautiful, and well described. Gives insight into your situation. Hope you keep the tigers at bay and maybe even one day bring them to the wilderness.
Wow!
I love "They're waiting
for the version of you that'll eventually
open the door and invite them inside."
So many people in my family are being watched by the tiger and I wonder if I too am being watched but just can't see him. Did I find another place to live where the tiger does not roam? Is he outside my window but I only see the trees and shadows that hide his stripes? I think I know he is there and he will finally get me but in the meantime, I pretend I am safe. I am safe if I don't see him.
Each time I read the poem, I am thankful for 30 years of marriage to someone who is not like Uncle. Rich's words are so clever and illustrate the way love can sometimes both free and limit us. Having a spouse who values my art and expression is a gift I appreciate very much.
Find the poem here:
https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/rich-jennifer-tiger.html
Hey that tiger breathe is getting too familiar. I rationalize that tiger saliva is better than a good face cream.
But it’s not.
Thank you and the Alexie community.
What a great and funny reply! Tiger saliva!
Your poem reminds me of Blake's "Tyger" who is frightening, beautiful, and created by the same force that creates the lamb. The dark lair is perhaps where much of great art is created--including your poem and so much of your writing.
I am also reminded of Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" and the prancing tigers locked in her art. They demonstrate her fear and frustration, but they also show her potential for creativity and communication. Great art is perhaps somewhere in the balance among fear, pain, dreams, light, dark, and hope.
Thanks for making me think and for giving all of us so many wonderful pieces of art.
Oh, I don't know that Rich poem. I'm going go look it up. Thanks for mentioning it.
I couldn’t help but think of my dear old mom when I read your piece, and about things the echo in myself, thoughts that linger.
My mom called herself Mort, not because of the translation to death, it’s short for her maiden name, Mortensen.
Mort dealt with her teeter-totter bipolar emotional division her whole life. When I was in high school in the Sixties, after late night screaming matches, my dad had her committed to Napa State Mental Hospital, a sad place that I only visited once.
I was reading Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the time and she was living in the book’s setting.
It wasn’t easy forgiving my dad, but he stood by her in his own way. He had heard about lithium treatment, which had shown success in England, and tried in vain to get her in an experimental trial over here, but it was still stuck in our med system.
Around the time I was getting out of high school and leaving home (finally) the US legalized lithium treatment.
Mort always said it saved her life. She took it for a long long time, more than 50 years, and it allowed her to live a somewhat normal life, albeit with less highs and lows. She called it her emotional keel.
In my life, I was always aware of my bipolar tendencies. My little brother was not as lucky as me: he went beyond a little crazy at various times. He tried lithium, but it wrecked his kidneys, and he stopped.
He had moved East at some point so I haven’t been able to watch over his mental health treatment. He has help, but not good help, and they try to help him with various drug cocktails. They usually keep him down and he spends too much time watching game shows with his little dog in his lap.
And me? When I was in high school I discovered cannabis, and psychedelics. I didn’t think of what I was doing as self-medication, but that’s what it was. I just thought of it as “getting high.” And I managed to steer clear of downers, particularly heroin, which took a few good friends. Marijuana became my friend, and her brother hashish. They’ve remained with me after my own sixty years plus, smoking and lately vaping.
Psychedelics opened my mind and I left the door to perception open. Lately that means occasionally micro-dosing mushrooms.
In her waning years, my mom dealt with the loss of my dad and moved nearby me. We pooled our money and bought a little house with a mother-in-law attachment, and my wife and I watched over her in the next stage of her life.
That meant watching over her meds. We didn’t get much help from psychiatrists; we live in a rural community where there aren’t many around.
She had a doctor she liked, but she wasn’t really trained on geriatrics or the complexities of mental health treatment. I found that as she hit her nineties and her decline accelerated, the intricate balance required for lithium was crucial.
Her doc didn’t know what to do. I called every psychiatrist around and got almost no help.
In the end, she basically decided she was done. I kept trying and finally got her an appointment with the psyche doc at a local clinic. Sadly, the day set for her to see him was the day she died.
She left an unused bottle of lithium behind, which I’ve kept on my desk to remind me of something that saved her. And I suppose just in case I ever need a keel as I sail through life.
Sorry if I rambled on, but sometimes I need to unload through letting my thoughts flow.
I’m left with echos of Blake, “burning bright / in the forests of the night…”
Oh, there is so much heartbreak and love in your post. I'm not sure how to respond other than to say your story helps me see the world in larger ways. I think your mother and my mother would've had a great time together, scaring and loving us in equal measure.
“the difficult medicine”
I know many of them over the past 20 years. I often tried to write letters to them so that I could try to explain them to medical professionals somehow. I’m sure these works will help a lot of people coming to terms with diagnoses, who are learning to tame their own animals walking beside them. Well done.
Thank you, Nikki. Last many (or most or nearly all) bipolar people, I resisted medical treatment for years and years. I'd been diagnosed bipolar 12 years ago but I pretty much did the minimum. I went to therapy on an irregular basis but even then I didn't share the extent of my emotional extremes. But I've accepted it now and I work hard to tame the tigers.
That is excellent. I live with bipolar, too, though the diagnosis has varied at times. Managing symptoms is extensively hard work, but can be done. Glad you’re talking about it. Important stuff.
Dysthymia is my riddle. I think it might be my Nimiipuu father’s riddle too.
Whatever the case, we didn’t talk about mental health issues until about 12 years ago, because to speak of mental illness meant one was speaking of being broken, damaged, weak, and "not Native."
I stand tall today as a Nimiipuu man with flaws that include bipolar disorder and OCD, but also include creativity unbridled, musicality unique to me in such a way as to have turned my neurodiversity into a prosperous career. But mostly...
I don’t care about being depressed. I care about shining as much as I can.
Shine, people. Shine.
Good for you, Jesse.
this is very good
Thank you!
How can one live in this culture honestly without depression? Especially as an artist who isn't content with glibness and surface? I don't think that is possible... it's the duration and whether it descends to despair that is crippling. I have lived there too.
Yes, that's a good take on depression.
But ... truly.... without the tigers, if there were only gentleness, just stoic sheep or mild lambs, wouldn't you be missing something? Don't you require the predatory passion of those tigers?
Mania is good until it the impulsive recklessness begins. Depression is never good.
What an incredible metaphor that opens a door into better understanding. Great, gritty poem, Sherman. And, looking at the photograph while you read it, I couldn't help thinking. How beautiful the tiger is. Thank you!
Yeah, moods are beautiful. But that beauty can also be overwhelming.
"the difficult
medicine"
Thanks for noticing that linebreak, Dan. I know you understand in particular what it means.