The indomitable Analice Silva

We’ve seen and loved Wonder Woman on screen but today, I’d like to share the story of a real life Wonder Woman. Analice Silva was born in abject poverty in the remote Brazilian village of Esperança. At the tender age of 3, she was abandoned by her family; given away by her father to a woman who enslaved her- offering only a bed for hard toil every day, and food on the occasions she fancied it. A slave at 3! Even when she returned home at 8, there was no welcome reception by her family, only more violence. So she ran away. She raised herself through petty works before finally meeting her husband, Evandro. Her only condition to the marriage was that he not hit her. She kept up with his philandering and floundering because he kept his word. But there was only so much she could put up with and finally left after 6 months in a loveless marriage. All she had with her was enough money to cover a one way trip to Rio de Janeiro. She was crushed but not broken. She had turned to doing household chores to sustain herself when she discovered that she was pregnant. But life wasn’t done taking swings at the woman and it was a stillborn baby at 7 months. She almost thanked her stars for how would she provide for this baby in her condition.
It was in 1980, at the young age of 37 that she discovered that it takes 10 years for a smoker’s lungs to recover after quitting. She apparently wanted her ‘pink’ lungs back. As a lifelong smoker, this scared her and she didn’t want to wait 10 years. That evening, she smoked her last cigarette and took up running; 16 kilometers in flip flops on the sidewalk of Copacabana under the new years’ eve fireworks.
She never stopped. She ran every day that January. She had run her first marathon and her first 100k within the year. She later moved to Portugal where she continued her love for running and ran a whole lot more, thousands of kilometers over road and trail worth more. Her longest run was the Volta ao Minho, a grueling 385 km race.
Analice was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year. Yes, she was still trading blows with life and wasn’t ready to hang up boots just yet. Even with the growing cancer, she ran. Her last run was the São Silvestre de Almada in December 2016. Analice passed away in Feb, 2017, almost 4 months to this day.
Running is such a seemingly individual sport but then there are stories like these, people like her and you realize you are kindred spirits, sharing love for the same things and its suddenly one big community activity! A way to escape drudgery of everyday life.
We need more Analices, to show us what is possible. Maybe we have such Analices we don’t know about. She didn’t live a glorified life, she didn’t preach. She only loved what she did and she shared that joy. She grew beyond her past. So maybe running away from your miseries, literally, might not be the worse thing in the world. Let’s support such Analices, let’s cheer them on, let’s become them.

P.S. The pictures are not mine, only the adulation.

Living, loving and losing with depression

The widest smiles
switch to the biggest frowns.
Internal only, mind you.
For all’s well to the world.
A reason, you ask?
There’s none.
Just an expansive feeling
of dark nothingness
and nauseating despair;
All encompassing
progressively expanding.
Never sated.
Even when it engulfs my everything
And me.
Impelling to a newer abyss,
bigger and lower than before.
Taking with itself
smiles and dreams,
hopes and aspirations,
joys and memories of joys.
Extinguishing even the smallest
flickering ray of hope.
Clawing at the dank walls
with every ounce of being,
trying to hold on
with long torn out nails
and a dreadfully worn out heart.
But the mind overturns
the battle of the heart.
Almost as instinct,
it pushes for the last breath;
A waspy, sharp inhale
of life itself.
A renewed vigor,
a last ditch effort
to rise above
to rekindle the suffused.
And lo and behold
It works!
Gasp by gasp,
bit by bit,
finding unseen footing.
The well-hidden light
secure in the heart,
Now a steady flame,
small but strong,
growing with each heave,
egging and spurring,
cushioning missteps,
lifting through the falls.
The memories seem to return,
faint recollections of another life,
in days of sunshine and rainbows;
Chuckle and laughter,
warmth and purpose,
refreshingly normal.
The burrows on the face
invert to the ghost of a smile.
All’s well in the world.
Finding it in the heart
to conquer the darkness.
And then,
with the slightest of nudges,
back in the chasm!
As dark, as scary, as cold
as I remember.
Is this my ‘normal’ now?
Permanently and inexplicably?
Can I give up?
One word and it’ll all be gone,
the pain, the torture, the anguish,
replaced for peace at last.
Or do I strive?
To find it in myself
to grow back those claws
to embark once over?
One more time?
And another?
And another?

The prompt for Day 30 of NaPoWriMo, ’17 is to write a poem about something that happens again and again. While the premise was general, I have been meaning to write about fighting depression for a very long time and this prompt looked like a good opportunity. It took me over a month to actually write what was essentially a task for a ‘daily’ prompt. However, I guess you’ll agree that the content deserves thought, consideration and consequently, time. Some of it is indeed a personal account but a lot is also testaments from people who suffer with cyclical anxiety and depression. I hope you find solace and strength through this poem. May we be better together.