A daily dose of 'Vitamin Sea'

By Virginia Winder

The sea could well be my lifesaver.

We love watching surfers in action.

Last year I nearly lost my life to depression, but I stayed. For 8 months out of 12, I struggled on as if I was trudging through mud wearing a concrete suit.

I lost days. Many days, to bed, to sleep, to hours lying in the gloom cuddling the dog or writing grim poems. I had stints in the mental health ward, in crisis respite and at the healing haven that is the Taranaki Retreat.

I held on. Because of love and family, support from mental health staff, because of hope, the deep knowing of my purpose as a storyteller, and because I believed, like every wild storm, “this too shall pass”.

Fitzroy on a stormy evening. 

Even after I wrote a story about how to save your life, which was published far and wide, I fell again. Slipped into a dark cave, a hell in my own head, brain defaulting to perish mode.

It wasn’t enough to hold on. I wanted to thrive, not just survive. 

So, on March 11 this year, we turned to the sea.

You see, in 2009, my husband Warren, son Nelson and I, swam in the sea every single day.

It was the New Year’s resolution of a 12-year-old boy that led to a miraculous discovery – I had no bouts of depression that year. We stopped in March 2010, because I couldn’t shake off a sinus infection, which led to passage-clearing surgery.

A decade on, there’s a raft of research coming out about the benefits of cold-water swimming, and, while the Tasman Sea has yet to turn freezing cold, it will. But already our daily dips in the surf are keeping gloomy days away.

A rainbow at Back Beach. 

“Our” and “we” means Warren and me. We are dedicated to getting our every-day dose of “vitamin sea”, which we also refer to as the “saline solution”.

The idea is head to the beach each day, and dive under at least three waves, feel the worries of the world wash away and soak in the glory of nature.

In less than two months, we have basked in sunsets, swum with shags, stepped on slippery fish, been drenched by rain before plunging into surging surf, gazed at rainbows, waded into stormy seas and watched in awe at the dexterity of Taranaki’s many surfers, who have long known about the healing powers of Tangaroa.

Mostly, we swim at Back Beach, but sometimes head to Fitzroy at high tide, so we can walk our dog, Luna.

A Taranaki traffic jam.

During our travels, we have been held up by cows on Beach Rd, Omata, watched a just-dusted Mt Taranaki turn pink at dusk, and been mesmerised by a murmuration of starlings as they pulse and soar at the end of the day over the Sugar Loaf Islands below Paritutu.

We love following a golden path into the sea at sunset and often turn to each other and say: “Look at this place we live in.”

On Star Wars Day, May the 4th (be with you), we invited anybody to join us at 11am on the sand below the bottom carpark at Back Beach. Six women came along on a day when the surf was even and strong and the day was calm.

On May the 4th the surf was even and strong. 

They all loved it.

Each woman came for different reasons – to support me, to improve their own mental health, to find out about this crazy idea of a daily dip and to be together with others.

Afterwards, all six said they would join us again for a monthly swim.

They felt elated following their Saturday morning dip in cool(ish) water.

“(It was) cold, refreshing and great to be immersed in nature,” says Dee Doherty, who felt greatly energised afterwards.

“I love swimming in our cool, clean powerful ocean and feel so invigorated, physically and mentally, afterwards,” says Bridget Fleming, who is a regular sea and river swimmer.

Cloud spires reflected in black sand at Back Beach.

“I went through so many emotions – fear, excitement, being exhilarated, feeling togetherness, relaxation,” Olena Williams says. “After the excitement was gone I felt very tired and had a nap.”

“Today was magic,” Michelle Bent says. “The sea was refreshingly cool, the waves just the right size. Diving under the first wave, you have to steel yourself for it, but once you’ve done it you feel completely alive. Being with a group enhanced the experience for me.”

Afterwards, she felt alive, strong and young.

Laurel Davis enjoyed “the rush of water, light, sound, being right there tumbled in a wave”. Hours later, she was still feeling “bloody fantastic”.

Luna caught in the path of the setting sun.

Sue Kelly has also started to swim in the sea daily, when possible, to keep the blues at bay. “I feel the physical sensation of the power of the waves exhilarating. Also, the size of the waves creates a degree of fear that I find mentally challenging. So, when I combat those fears it gives me a great feeling of satisfaction and achievement.

“Physically, I felt my skin tingle and (I was) exhilarated especially as we were in for 20 minutes.”

Sue and I stayed in the longest. I also felt uplifted, but also peaceful and bloody cold. It took me hours to warm up properly, so I don’t plan to stay in that long next time. Three waves are OK by me and, in winter, even that will be tough.

But there is no out. I will be in every day because my life depends on it.

So, like a life buoy, I’m clinging to the wise words of one of my greatest fictional heroes, Yoda: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Taste terror to know you're alive

This weta bit like fire, but I'm rapt with Gene Martin's art. 

By Virginia Winder

I am Wetawoman, hear me roar.

But more than 20 years ago, my catch cry was closer to “see a weta, hear me roar”.

For the first 30-something years of my life, I was terrified of the world’s largest insects.

When I saw one of these giant, armoured, serrated critters I would freak, heart pounding, pulse racing and adrenalin flooding. I was a “get it off, get it off,” howler.

Art changed that for me.

One day in about 1997, I found a dead weta in our art room, and gently placed it on my work table. Then I drew it, immersed myself in its intricacies and noted its bronze shell, long delicate feelers, its jagged limbs and marvellous mandibles.

I transformed this drawing into a stencil for printing on shirts with the words “weta dreams” and one of my male workmates wore it with pride and a grin at the play on words.

The first weta stamp

Next came the stamp, which I carved out of rubber, glued on to a wooden block and still use to print patterns on paper.

I was so in love with these armoured critters that by the time it came to choose my first-ever email address in the late 1990s, it seemed natural to have wetawoman@, which still works today. I’m also Wetawoman on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.

Not only was I absolutely enamoured by the bronze-brown beauties, but I also discovered my fear had completely disappeared.

Paper printed with my carved designs.

By the early 2000s, I could hold a weta, cradle it in my hands like a delicate bird and talk to it with soothing words without a trace of fear.

I believe creatures know whether we’re frightened, have violent intent or are welcoming and comfortable around them. Animals can smell fear. The weta I held, or those who have climbed up my legs, weren’t spooked and neither was I.

Yes, weta can hurt. They have a bite, which allegedly feels like being nipped by a crab, something that’s happened to my feet umpteen times over the years while standing in the sea. Those pincers give you a fright, but not enough to leave the water.

These critters are all over the house. 

In 2002, my sister and I joined forces to make an entry for the Taranaki Fashion Art Awards. We made a wild creation called Pacific Angel Meets the Wetawoman. My sister wove a curvaceous dress from flax. I dyed fabric to look like the sea and printed it with bronze weta. This flowed out beneath the flax work.

The costume comes to life. 

A brown op-shop dress beneath the flax was covered with bronze-sprayed magnolia leaves, and I made a helmet out of plaster of Paris, sprouting flax flowers, again all sprayed bronze. We used phoenix palm fronds as wings and adorned the wings and a choker necklace with large pieces of paua shell to add Pacific sparkle. 

Made over two days and nights – we went down to the wire – we won the ethnic section of awards.

Over the years, I have accumulated weta ornaments. A gorgeous one by Taranaki artist Laurel Davis graces our bedroom wall, a wire weta perches on the wall in our entrance way, and I have a collection of life-like plastic creatures that sit in places all over the house – in the artroom, below my screen monitor and on our bed end.

Yesterday, a friend gave me a glorious weta paperweight her mother wasn’t fond of. It’s now on my PC motherboard.

Weta sculpture by Laurel Davis. 

But on Thursday my Wetawoman status became more permanent when Gene Martin at Brothers Ink in New Plymouth tattooed a glorious critter on to my right shoulder.

He also etched me with three green ginkgo leaves, representing “the bearers of hope”. That’s another whole story. That tattoo stung mildly.

Next, he added a dahlia flower and leaves to my first tattoo, “This too shall pass;” turning those life-saving words into a stem. Dahlias have been my favourite flowers since I began my “flower of the day” obsession nearly six years ago. The chosen picture was one I took of a dahlia in our own garden. The flower bloody hurt.

A wire weta in our entranceway. 

By the time he got to the weta, the pain had amped up like an annoying neighbour’s stereo at 4am, except I wasn’t facing noise, I was feeling fire.

Gene urged me to breathe through it and I found myself in child-birth mode, diving under waves of pain and clinging on to the black sand below, until the contraction, or in this case the burn of skin-inking, washed over me.

Then it was over; the transformation complete. I am Wetawoman hear me roar.

A paperweight gifted to me by a friend. 

Facing fears, like holding giant insects, jumping out of a plane as a friend just has (to adrenalin-rushing joy), performing your own poems before a large audience (I did that last year at Womad in the Poetry Slam and to my amazement came second) are good for the soul. They make us feel alive. 

Last week, my husband Warren and I saw Nick Cave in Conversation at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington.

The Australian musician alternated between answering questions from the audience and singing while playing a black grand piano. It was a bit like the tattoos (yet to come) – a mixture of pain (too many questions began as long I-focused sycophantic preambles) and the pleasure of seeing or this case hearing what he had to say.

Cave did answer questions, but some he ignored, others he promised to come back to but mostly didn’t. His answers were fascinating and profound, funny and inspiring. But he talked about fear and that touched me: “Doing this is to invite the terror back in; to stand in front of you is terrifying.”

Nick Cave says he's not a genius, he's just put in the work. 

It got me thinking about the things I want to do but am terrified about attempting or doing.

I didn’t have to look too far – the answer is fiction writing and, yes, performing poetry in front of a bunch of people I don’t know. I shake on stage, which is damn annoying.

But there’s the thrill of getting up there and sharing words that have been wrenched from the heart, from the soul, from somewhere so deep I don’t have a clue where they come from.

After last year’s effort, I vowed never to do it again. But, like the pain of childbirth – and tattoos – the agony fades until you are left with a beautiful baby or an indelible artwork with a story behind it.

To be a writer you have to write. 

So, I’ve chosen to enter the Womad Poetry Slam again, but don’t know if I’ll be chosen for the final seven. We’ll see.

But the BIG decision I’ve made is to focus purely on writing this year – many feature stories, some news, a pile of poetry and to finish the novel I started about three years ago.

Here, Taranaki’s own Elizabeth Smither and David Hill, plus Nick Cave have the answer – you must be disciplined and do the work.

There’s nothing glamorous about their lifestyles because it’s all about hard graft.

“I turn up to the place I work every morning, the same as any other office worker,” Cave told the Wellington audience.

While he does need to have a flash of inspiration to write a novel, his lyrics come from sitting down and writing; by doing the work, just like our Taranaki word stars.

Time to roar - and write!

So, don’t expect to see me hanging out in cafes quite as often – unless I’m working. I’ll be home, fingers on the keyboard taming the terror of finally facing fiction.

And yes, I will find the art box that’s been turned off and hidden somewhere in a far-flung universe, and with the nerve and verve of a superhero, I’ll fly it home, switch it back on and start creating in my art room again.

Because I know this for certain: Tackling knuckle-white terror shifts something inside, makes you stronger, opens your mind to new ways of being and thinking.

I am Wetawoman hear me roar! 

Try a little kindness....

By Virginia Winder

I’ve gone on about kindness, thrown it around like confetti, at an old-fashioned wedding.

But what does it actually look like? Especially when it comes to mental despair.

I say to those people uncomfortable in the face of depression, anxiety and panic attacks, of bipolar ups and downs, relax, we’re not going to infect you.

There is no superbug of mental illness although depression is proving to be prevalent and tough to beat.

Please treat us the same as someone with a physical illness. Offer to visit and don’t be offended if we say no, but we certainly want to be asked.

If we turn down your invitation to an outing with lots of people, it’s not about you. It’s that social anxiety critter, one that often accompanies a full-blown depressive episode, apt to rear its ugly head during the festive season.

If you know someone’s in the throes of the lows, write a nice text, send flowers or chocolates, post a card and no, we don’t expect or want you to counsel us, but a kind listening ear is a gift. Please keep us in mind because we can’t escape ours.

I’m going to be truthful - the past year has been a mixture of heaven and hell.

Heaven was three weeks in Kerala, India.

Hell has been inside my head, with a touch of back pain thrown in for variety.

But the pain from a prolapsed mid-disc is entirely different to mental agony.

A back injury can be captured on an MRI, it can be defined, solutions found and a healing timeframe offered.

The Taranaki Base Hospital team are nearly as good looking.

You’re of so much interest to the orthopaedic surgical team, there is usually a Grey’s Anatomy learning moment at the foot of your bed each morning.

Throughout the day, you’re asked to score your pain out of 10. If you’re teetering on the upper limit or less you are given strong pain relief.

Yet depression is undefinable. There is no way to find its cause - physiological or psychological? Or both.

Research is linking depression to gut health and also inflammation.

I’m not expected to find answers for my prolapsed disc, although I do always google to get a mental picture of what’s happening.

But on the mental health front, I feel I should’ve earned a doctorate by now.

The mental health practitioners who care for me, do their best and are exceptional.

But it was me who had to do the research between menopause and bipolar. The stats are alarming because they show that depressive episodes double for menopausal women living with a diagnosis of bipolar.

Yay! A definitive moment.

Yes, that’s a distressing answer, but at least it explains why, in the past few years, my mood has spiralled down and down.

But I want to be well, in control and living a full life, one where I don’t end up in hospital, crisis respite or need to seek space to breathe at the Taranaki Retreat.

I’ve decided 2019 will be a year of healing, learning, giving and gratitude.

Did you know that doing a kind act for someone else is the quickest way to receive a boost of the feel-good hormone oxytocin?

Weirdly, I have a rule, taught to me by my mother, never to tell people if I’ve done something kind. It’s not about accolades, it’s about the act.

And we’re back to kindness.

Please reach out with warmth to those who are suffering, particularly those living with mental despair, often hidden.

And there are those of us who live with ongoing episodes of depression that we work so damn hard to avoid, but still they come again and again. That’s despite using mindfulness tools, brain-based therapy, self-compassion, CBT, DBT and ACT - oh the acronyms I know, the books I’ve read, the magazine articles I’ve consumed, the research papers I’ve mulled over.

The inflammation and gut-health theories are under scrutiny in our household right now, so you will be offered easily digestible information on these topics soon.

In the meantime, never presume that those of us living in the lows aren’t doing our best to carry on like nothing’s wrong or using every tool possible to get well.

If someone you know is dogged by depression, reach out or be receptive.

You never know when a lovely message may be a turning point for someone feeling hopeless.

None of us knows who is hurting, or having a day gone from bad to worthless, so be kind to everyone.

You’ll get an oxytocin hit and add colour to someone’s grey day.