it's all about perception

This crazy mixed up beauty is all that we have

I'm not sure what Jewel's intention was here, but for me it's an accurate representation of how my bi-polar is. One minute the world is overwhelmingly beautiful, exciting and wonderful, and you're filled with an enormous enthusiasm, energy and sense of contentment, and the next you plunge back into a black and white world of emptyness and numbness, anxiety and despair.

But it ends on a hopeful note.

Norma gathers and collects

Greta's cedar hope chest Is full of pamphlets Glass shelves of romantic vignettes A journal laced with sedimentary prose Norma gathers and collects vintage photoplays Hair combs valentines Lillian allows the animals to scratch Leather crack Mail collect in the box coatings peel Agnes veiled cathedral dweller Smiles with benevolent pain It's Katrina's fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits mannerists All others dissipate Margauritte vigilant dwells upon frigid casements Sarah's thoughts in the velocity Accusations always pierce and pass Clara abandons her passions for distastes Miss Lenora P. Sinclair Early for coffee in the pool "I'm resituating all your words" Capital Space Colon Paragraph Sylvia keeps beasts in jars labeled Kingdom phylum class order family genus species.

(~Natalie Merchant 'Katrina's Fair' lyrics)