Square-Peg-Spotlight on Ruth Zali Deming

This Square-Peg-Spotlight is on artist, writer and mental health advocate, Ruth Zali Deming.

Ruth has a long list of achievements and awards, but what I think you’ll like about her has little to do with those. I think you’ll like her way of seeing, her dedication to creativity, her humor and boldness.

Let’s look at a small part of that list I mentioned above: Ruth has received a Leeway Foundation Grant in Creative Nonfiction, is a published poet and author. She is an artist, psychotherapist, gardener and editor.

Ruth founded the first community support group in the Philadelphia area for people with mood disorders and their families (in 1986). She is responsible for evolving this support group, New Directions, into a nonprofit organization.

She’s been awarded numerous grants for the work of New Directions. And guess who does the grant writing? You’re right if you guessed Ruth.

She’s a mentor to other artists and writers. Ruth was the first writer I ever spoke to. She encouraged me in my writing - giving me honest, yet gentle, feedback. And, most helpful to me, told me about her writing process.

And she loves to “nurture other people toward recovery”. Recovery from what? Well, that might just be Ruth’s biggest accomplishment - Ruth has rebuilt her life after suffering from severe symptoms of Manic-Depression (Ruth prefers this term to the current Bi-Polar Disorder) and Anxiety.

Ruth was the first person I thought of when I thought of interviewing someone for The Encourager. She and I were therapists in the same agency years ago. Because she is an artist and a writer I know that she is hard-core square-peg - meaning she sees things differently than many in the round-hole world (actually, Ruth says: “I just think of myself as an original.”)

This interview is taken from a phone conversation and e-mail correspondence on the square-peg subject with additional information taken from Ruth’s site.

When I called Ruth to ask if she’d be willing to be interviewed it had been almost a year and a half since I’d last spoken to her - during intermission at a seminar on Borderline Personality Disorder that she’d hosted. But she was willing and anxious to help - and we had a wonderful time catching up!

While we were on the phone Ruth noticed the beauty of the moss in her yard. She also said that she was standing in her garden - and told me what was blooming at the time. Ruth even notices people whom others might pass by...

"Some people look dull. Never for a moment believe it! They’ve all got their stories. . . The motto here is: Talk to everyone!! It’s a learned art. Not everyone will be receptive. But when they are, baby, when they are, you’ve hit paydirt and can turn on the Hallelujah chorus high volume! It’s an “encounter state” and this is the only reason I know of to be here on mother earth. To create sustain and maintain Encounters".

And she uses this ability to notice things in support of her creativity and art. In a Letter from Ruth, on her site, Ruth speaks of walking

"...around the neighborhood this morning picking up a beautiful feather, some pine cones, a handful of pine needles, and some sort of plastic circle, and then bringing in from the backseat the bamboo shoot I found in someone’s trash in Crestmont, and then creating an altar out of them in my backyard.

Artists make altars. Try it yourself. Go for a walk and pick up things that catch your eye. Then arrange them outdoors where you can see them. Today I walked out back and saw my altar. It gave me a feeling that I am a creative person. Something you can look at and see. The storehouse of creativity must be constantly renewed".

When I asked Ruth how she copes with the round-hole world, what her strategy is, she said:

“I size people up quickly and see what I can get away with. You can't get away with much, but when you do..... very very great things happen. You can play with people. You can have great times.”

I happen to know that she uses humor, too. We laughed alot during our 118 minutes. Ruth tells a story (in a Letter from Ruth ) about having fun with a telephone solicitor:

"The secret is: Don’t let them talk.

One time, after a telephone solicitor asked me ‘How are you?’ I talked to him for 5 minutes straight making up all these horrible physical and mental conditions, leprosy, elephantiasis, amputated from the knees down, until finally I had mercy and said,

‘Okay, enough about me, Sam. How are you doing’?"

Another way Ruth copes with the round-hole world is by getting to know her needs - and finding ways to meet those needs. In other words - taking care of herself. Sometimes that includes planning ahead:

"... when I came home was greeted by the purple pansies I planted before I left so that when I came home they would be waiting for me, greeting me, in the dark, growing, growing, while I was gone, unattended, but I could see the purple of them and the waving of them when I pulled into my driveway in the dark night".

Sometimes it involves incorporating little things into self-care. For example, in a Letter from Ruth she describes her reaction to receiving a hostile e-mail:

"...it nearly blew me out of my chair. I literally felt like an arrow had pierced my heart.

I’m very sensitive...

I stepped away from the computer, looked out the window at the sky and then said to myself, “What can I do that will make me feel good.”

I’ll go to Barnes and Noble, I thought to myself, and look for the foreward of Lie Down in Darkness, an essay by John Donne that our library doesn’t have".

Two other things Ruth wrote me, that I think assist her in being her best self in the round-hole world are:

I asked Ruth: "What was the hardest time for you in relating your Square-Peg self to the round-hole world"? She answered:

"And it was the most terrible feeling anyone can have in the world. And it was so terrible I have spent the rest of my life doing everything under the sun so as not to ever feel that feeling again.

Imagine! Because of a feeling - the most horrible feeling a human being can have in wide world - I changed my whole life around".

"Great question. My imagination. My spontaneity. My ability to make conversation with anybody. And the fact that I'm not afraid of anything or anybody. I conquered all my fears, which was proven when I went for a 4-day trip to Barbados.

Luckily, I inherited the "courage gene" from my father. He was a United States Marine who was scared of everything but did it anyway.

Me, too.

...Going to Barbados by myself was extremely challenging. I used to be afraid of flying but conquered it by going up in a small plane at the Doylestown airport two years ago. Whenever you challenge yourself to do something and succeed, you grow as a person. I am determined to grow in every way I can while I’m on this earth".

And she’s bold - she has a willingness to speak her mind. Ruth is bold enough to shake her fist up to the sky:

"Don’t you worry. Someday, Your Little Ruthie is going to have a book out. I have all them poems and stories sitting in my computer – and – get this! – they’re all backed up, hear that! – I’m talking to YOU, Lightning and Thunder and Acts of God – backed up by an important piece of modern machinery called an E-Drive – look, I even remember the name! - an E Drive"!

Ruth sometimes speaks in absolutes. And even if I don’t agree with something she says I admire her ability and willingess to speak her mind.

I invite you to take a gift from Ruth when you leave this virtual page - help yourself to some more humor, creativity or boldness in your life, an openness to seeing and appreciating the little things - the details, a new dedication to finding what works for you. We all have access to these things!

The gift I want to take for myself--the quality that Ruth has that I’d like to use to inspire me is her ability to see and enjoy the small things. When I’m thinking of ways to take care of myself I jump right to big ideas: redo the kitchen - take a trip.

Then I might sulk--I can’t do that right now--not enough money or energy. How good it will be for me to remember Ruth’s example: to use the little things for self care. She seems to luxuriate in them -the moss, the garden -a walk - I wish you could hear the passion in her voice when she talks about her garden! OK, that’s my gift to myself - remember the little things.

You can read more about Ruth’s achievements, struggles, and thoughts - as well as check out the on-line resources for people with mood disorders and their families at Ruth's site - http://newdirectionssupport.org. Don’t miss Ruth’s poems - she shares some of them in the Letter from Ruth section of the site.

Interview with Ruth Deming