Mind of a Poet
The mind of a Poet, as I see it, is a mind that colors life with imagination based on necessarily bitter experience, a mind that has survived the squalor of small humiliations and the melancholy of great disillusions, and remains unerring in the perception of beauty in the human heart.
-Noel Coward's Preface to William Bolitho's Camera Obscura
When she was a little girl, long before I was aware that she'd experienced squalor and the melancholy of great disillusions, I would tell people that Carrick had the mind and soul of a poet. I cannot say that she always perceives beauty in the human heart, but I believe she is capable of seeing it more intensely than most of us. I believe she experiences many emotions more intensely than most of us.
It's simple to deduce that the union of Deirdre's and my gene pools would stand a very good chance of producing alcoholic progeny. In fact, though, our one child by birth (we adopted Duncan) has never been much of a drinker.
Carrick, who was born on August 4, 1984, doesn't like the taste of alcohol, nor is its high very satisfying to her. Since she was twelve, however, she has ingested marijuana, hashish, amphetamines, pseudoephedrine, ecstasy, LSD, cocaine, crack, heroin, speedballs and any other substance that promises a few moments relief from what undoubtedly has been a tormented psyche. At the same time, she usually refused to take the Ritalin and various antidepressants that medical doctors prescribed for her Attention Deficit Disorder and clinical depression (or, as the latest diagnosis would have it, bipolar disorder) because “I don't want to be dependent on them.”
If I pray for anything, I pray for this: I pray that Carrick will not only continually rediscover the beauty in the human heart that she is capable of seeing so well, but also reveal its radiance to others who are trapped in their own bitter experiences.