This entry is dedicated to Ben, a young man who committed suicide in our community last week.

I picked up a book today, Oaxaca, Stories in Cloth, and in the forward Martín Prechtel writes,

"Great artists, on the other hand, make gifts, gifts of grief-derived beauty to liberate, infuse, and above all nourish, not themselves, but what they love."

I've thought a lot about what I want this project to say. I've explored how the text and handkerchiefs interact. I've considered including personal stories, or texts by well-known writers. I've thought about what parallels I can make between indigo and MDE.

Now I know that I must move this project forward with passion and love for life itself. So that this awful thing becomes visible, and to teach people to see it as a condition, not characteristic. No one would choose to be depressed, just as no one wants cancer.

I have an indigo vat that I let go dormant for the winter. The indigo is revived; liberated from its frozen hibernation, nourished, and ready infuse the cloth with living blue fluid. Tomorrow I will dip more handkerchiefs into the darkness...for Ben.