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emotional gene pool. My father described it thirty years ago, in a welcome-to-the-world letter to her one-year-old son: “I guess what I’m trying to say, and I’m not saying it very well, is that this family is emotional, but tries to keep the fact a secret.” (My dad treated all children as adults—he wasn’t always so generous with actual adults.)
    Secret isn’t really the right word. We can be extremely sensitive and compassionate. We just don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves and aren’t all that fond of public displays of psychosis. More important, we’re all committed to finding humor in virtually any situation, no matter how dark. So, while my cousin and I both have a vague idea of what the other has gone through over the years, neither of us is aware of the severity or how our respective families dealt (or are dealing) with it.
    We also spend some time speculating about the degree to which our siblings, cousins, and children avoided that particular familygene (up to 100%) and trying to track it back through several generations.
    â€œRemember how
he
used to sit there in that chair like he had never moved and never intended to …?”
    â€œ
Her
? She died before I was born, but I have this picture … she’s standing with her hand on some kind of wrought iron gatepost holding flowers—so beautiful—but her head is tilted a little left and down, and those eyes … I know those eyes … I
have
those eyes.”
    â€œNow
that
guy … he was never depressed a day in his life! Probably adopted!”
    â€œI used to wonder about
her
. But that wasn’t depression. Or if it was, she channeled it into the fine art of loving intolerance.”
    â€œNow
he was
a drunk. No question …”
    â€œCut him some slack … he was married to
her
.”
    And so we laugh our way through our family tree.
    We don’t bother talking about the so-called Depression Gene (5-HTTLPR) which, allegedly, makes it easier to transform stress into major depression. Considering that some of these ancestors took considerable risks getting out of Lithuania and Romania during 19 th C . pogroms, there was certainly plenty of stress going around.
    But we know that nurture and nature are just two of
many
sides of a three-dimensional coin. And we’ve both paid our dues.
    March 23, 2006 to March 26, 2006: Anaheim & Laguna Beach, California
. You’d think that a Natural Foods Expo going on within a precious-crystal’s throw of Daffy and Grumpy, wouldn’t be the best place for a manic-depressive. But, actually, as outer events go, it goes pretty well.
    First of all, things happen way faster than my brain can keep up with or run away from. So, I’m constantly distracted from the discomforting signals being sent by errant neurons.
    Second, there are a lot of people selling products that use top-secret natural processes to extract top-secret vital components that contain top-secret energetic vibrations that, if taken in preciselythe correct top-secret dosages and sequences can help even a blatant psychotic like myself. (While I don’t have a chance to try everything, the free ice cream and chips cheer me up quite a bit.)
    People constantly come up to our booth and ask deeply perplexing philosophical questions about the products my partner and I are selling: “Is it all natural?” “Does it have _______?” (Fill in blank with whatever natural ingredient some magazine just said would either shorten or increase your lifespan.) “Is it cruelty-free?”
    In spite of my beleaguered cranium, I feel compelled to inject these repetitive conversations with some contrarian, albeit well-meaning insights.
    â€œWell, depends what you mean by all natural,” I respond. “You know … no artificial ingredients … stuff made from petrochemicals,” they explain.