February 11, 2007
Sunday 

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
          — Ezra Pound, 1885-1972
              American poet

As I write this, just after 9:00 on the second Sunday in February, the weather pixie who lives on my desktop is wearing her fur-collared coat above an indication of 28° F. She’s not wearing a hat, maybe because there is no wind. And she’s smiling, possibly because today the temperature climbed to one degree above freezing for the first time since February 2.

A friend of mine once described February as “twenty-eight dark, horrible, miserable, unnecessary days.” He was often irritable and could be insensitive to the needs of others. This behavior seemed to increase during the winter. He would learn later in his life that he suffers from dysthymic disorder, an indwelling inclination to depression that has a biological rather than a situational cause. He now takes what he calls his “happy pills” and is doing much better.

Unlike my friend, I have always known I had a morose side to my personality, a tendency toward gloom and introspection. I was a maid of constant sorrow, more so in the winter. When I had what is called “situational increase,” a period when the endogenous depression is exacerbated by some upsetting event, I felt even worse. For nearly two years during the early 1970s I experienced a major depression. I functioned at work, but without any joy. I would go to bed as soon as I got home in the afternoon and sleep without rest. During the dark months I would wake up at 6:00 and not know which 6:00 that was.

Like my friend, I am doing much better now, although I do it without medication. I haven’t had another episode I could characterize as a major depression, just times when I needed a lot of support and the use of some very specific coping strategies, times when I sort of dangled my feet in the black hole of despair rather than falling completely into it.

So it’s been below freezing for ten days, a significant snow is predicted for Tuesday, our garage door is broken, making it cold in the kitchen and causing me to alter my plans for tomorrow if I have to wait for the repair service, yet I can’t stop singing. My mood is sunny, joyful, upbeat. I am enjoying a period of enormous productivity in writing. Yesterday the supermarket was so crowded that I had time to read the entire issue of People while in the checkout, yet I arrived home counting my blessings and eager to plunge into the chopping and slicing and mixing and grilling I did yesterday and today. This is the best year of my life.

That morose tendency I have always makes me suspicious of periods of intense happiness. Maybe I’ll be singing Ezra Pound’s song yet before this winter is over.

But maybe not.