Writing on interesting places, writing on nice stories and writing on mental health

There's been some excellent writing I've come across lately that seems to link together with two pieces being about interesting places, two about people with stories that can be described as exceptionally nice and two about the important subject of mental health.

In terms of interesting places, the March 2013 issue of Outside Magazine had a fascinating feature story written by Rowan Jacobsen. "Chef Blaine Wetzel's Quest to Become the Ultimate Locavore" was on the just-now-turning-27 Wetzel and his Willows Inn restaurant on Lummi Island near Bellingham, WA. It was one of those pieces of writing that stood out in part because I wouldn't have expected it to.

Another interesting place story recently was also from Outside, with the Outside website having a piece noted as originally appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of OnEarth Magazine. About the Chicago River, Matthew Power wrote "Is it Possible to Save the Waterway That Made Chicago Great?" Very similar to the feature on Wetzel and the Willows Inn, I wouldn't have expected to find this story that compelling, but it really was... and included Power describing the river by writing "levels of E. coli bacteria in non-disinfected wastewater sent from Stickney into the canal have registered 700 times above the legal limit for swimmable water."


In terms of nice, two stories that have stuck with me recently were on adoption of an abandoned child and a kayak journey. Of particular profundity was "We Found Our Son in the Subway", a first-person account from playwright and screenwriter Peter Mercurio posted to a New York Times blog. It's just heartwarming reading of a story that as Mercurio writes "began 12 years earlier."

It may not have the gravitas of the account by Mercurio, but another feel-good story written well was from Tampa Bay Times writer Ben Montgomery. "Kayak trip from Minnesota to Key West cuts through Tampa Bay" was about Daniel Alvarez and his solo kayak trip from Minnesota to Key West. The journey was financed by a $10,000 Outside Magazine (again with Outside Mag!) prize and Montgomery recounts how the 31 year old left behind his corporate law gig (which came out of a Yale law degree) to do... exactly what he wants to be doing.


The mental health writing was first a Chris Jones column for ESPN and then short interview with him about what he wrote. "Status update: A tennis player quits because the cost of a public life feeds her depression" is on 22 year old Rebecca Marino and then the Q&A piece "ESPN The Magazine columnist Chris Jones relates with young tennis star’s bouts with depression." In the interview, Jones references writing on the subject of his own depression a Nov 2011 Esquire piece (that I wrote about along with a similarly important Mike Sager piece) and his statement that "mental illness is something we should talk about" just seems to ring so true.

Esquire Mental Health Writing - Chris Jones & Mike Sager

There were two excellent pieces of writing from the November 2011 issue of Esquire Magazine with Panic (posted online in 2014 after the suicide of Robin Williams) by Chris Jones and Depression by Mike Sager.

The Jones piece covers his own past suicidal thoughts to the point of first contemplating jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and later superficially cutting himself with a knife. Each episode was described as something of a culmination of spiraling emotions involving excessive anger, stuck thoughts of problems not improving, or runaway thoughts of those same problems getting much worse.

It was remarkable reading because of the level to which the author gave himself up to readers and a positive conclusion of sorts to this story comes in the form of a post by Jones towards the bottom of this SportsJournalists comment thread.

It wouldn't be true to write that I understand how he felt because that’s just dumb and I've never been in the place he describes. That said, life can be a challenge at times and it's almost inspiring to read of how it's not easy for those that one might think live a charmed life (and I've had that view of Jones with his writing ability and career).

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The Mike Sager piece differs in that it's about someone who was not actually sick with depression, but very well could have been giving his life circumstances. Sager was going through a divorce and accompanying time apart from his teenage child and actually diagnosed with major depressive disorder. He fought the diagnosis which drove up insurance costs and was able to overturn it as incorrect. Sager’s writing certainly seems to indicate a lack of depression as he keeps his life moving forward and makes the all-important statement “how much can one man take? As much as need be."

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While the two pieces come from very different places, it seems the aforementioned Sager quote in line with how Jones closed his story by writing that he wished "we would always be terrified of death... and spend the rest of our lives running from it."

Other thing I keep thinking about in relation to both pieces is the distinction between two different ways of viewing situations… one being to imagine how much better things could be (bad view) and the other how much worse the possibilities (good view).

This relative ranking of viewpoints doesn't advocate for perpetual status quo, but rather for an appreciation of things good and/or really not that bad.

Mental Health Piece from Time

Very thought-provoking story from the annual Time Magazine "Health Issue" in it's June 22 edition.

Titled "Staying Sane May Be Easier Than You Think", it examines the idea of psychological health and both how there can be early indicators of mental health problems and ways to ward them off. Specifically, it follows the research of Dr. William McFarlane and his efforts to "pre-treat" youth prior to any episodes of psychosis.

It's the type of stuff that would likely have been viewed as being in the purview of witch doctor science in years past, but today is certainly worth consideration and debate.