About Me…

How do I tell a stranger about ‘me’? It’s a very daunting task, much easier here where the anonymity of the internet allows me to hide behind my keyboard, but still a bit scary for someone who would rather pretend to be someone else then reveal my true self. So, the best way for me to do this is to write as if I were narrating my own story, which in a way I actually am with this blog. 🙂

“L.E.Ferens (nee Rideout) grew up in Ontario, Canada, living in a house in a city near a lake but yearning for life in a cottage by the sea. Cherished by family and friends, as a child she loved all things creative and musical, anything that hinted of ‘magic’, and felt that it was her sole responsibility in life to nurture and ‘mother’ every ‘critter’ she found wandering across her path. Although she was a boisterous, cheerful child, she became a withdrawn, shy teenager and by her late teens she was diagnosed with PDD (Persistent Depressive Disorder, once referred to as “Dysthemia”), a chronic Clinical Depression. In her mid-twenties she met the man who would be her husband and she found out that there really was “love at first sight”, and that yes, true love is real too. Over the years to come, she endured a long battle to be a ‘normal’ person, going through many long weeks of dark moods and extreme lows, followed by long spans of days, weeks and even months of seemingly happy, ‘in control’ living, never quite finding balance between the two. The cycle turned cataclysmic at one point and if not for her husband’s quick action, her attempted suicide would have been successful. With her loving family surrounding her, she went on to become a survivor and a warrior, she fought her depression and regained her courage in time.
It was soon after this that she and her husband realized that life in the city, amid the stifling crush and rush, living from paycheck to paycheck just to get by and having no sense of contentment, was not the ‘life’ they wanted to have, and so with one huge leap of faith, they hired a moving van, packed their cats in their station wagon, and headed for the Atlantic coast where the fresh ocean air breathed new life into their lungs and gave them new hope.
Still, the battle against her depression continues to be an ongoing one, made more difficult sometimes due to the remote area in which she now lives, which lacks easy access to medical resources and therapy, and the fact that there remains a heavy stigma attached to those who suffer from mental illness even with all the understanding and awareness we have today. There are still dark days and bright days in her life, and throughout her recovery therapy, creativity has always been a large comfort to her. Reading has been and always will be her first love, and painting, crochet, beadwork and other crafts have kept her mind occupied, but it has only been recently that she discovered her word muse, a new voice and a new creative spirit. And so she began writing… and she hasn’t stopped since.”

So now you know a little more about ‘who’ L.E.Ferens is… and you have found her site of writings and ramblings, and in reading some of them you will get to know her a little more I hope… but be forewarned that sometimes her mind wanders into the places where memories and long-hidden fears of past descents into darkness are evoked anew and the words that fly from her pen are not all full of light and love. When you read these please be kind and remember that not all of us dance in the sun every day, not all of us laugh at adversity, not all of us relish life’s challenges, and not all of us are able to smile through our tears.

“My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.” ~ Virginia Wolf

Postscript: A little further explanation about the poetry you will find on these pages: my main muse is often times a variety of fellow poets found on Twitter and from them I glean inspiration for my poems. Many of these works are created around ‘prompts’ – these are single words or phrases, pictures or literary quotes which are meant to inspire or, in other words, get the grey cells working. So if some of these poems don’t generally make sense to you, please consider that they may have been written specifically to showcase a particular ‘word’ or ‘phrase’, or just that they were meant for fun or rambling nothingness. You can find me on Twitter @LostAlyne.  🙂