Schizoaffective

Lake Michigan from Algoma, WI Sometime in the next decade, none of the three of us will have a reason to return to Green Bay. We grew up together there. One of my two friends, I have known since first grade, the other since about 8th. We sat masked for COVID on the back porch of the house of one of my friend's parents, a house I first visited 43 years ago in order to tape some Ted Nugent albums. We are all in our mid 50s. Our parents are either dead or not doing so well, and the in-laws or parents are all that keep us coming back. Soon, they won't be with us, and our siblings all live in other cities. I had the acute sense that, in spite of not having gotten together as the three of us in about 20 years, this was closing in on the end of something. One of my friend's father died almost 50 years ago. We were in Cub Scouts at the time. It was my first encounter with death. Our den mother led us scouts to his house, where we stood outside and sang. He came to the large picture...

by Jay Paul [This piece does not directly address mental health. All of the posts on here do not. I want to present my thinking on a variety of issues because I wonder if there is something characteristically schizoaffective about how I use my mind. Maybe there isn't. But if you see something, please let me know, because the following question is animating much of this blog: what does schizoaffective contribute to the diversity of human thought? I know schizoaffective is often devastating. But it is also a specific window on experience. This piece originally appeared in a Vail Place newsletter.] written on April 29, 2020 The irony is not lost on me: I am about to burn fossil fuel to drive in my car to a place where I can commune with nature. My assumption is readily apparent to me. “Nature” is not what I see and hear out of my apartment window—the cars, the parking lot, the hum of the highway blocks away, the birds, the trees. Somehow, “nature” is considered that which exists indep...