Ah, the blank page. Perhaps nothing has so crippled men, crushed fragile spirits, and wrecked tender minds as that single page, looming up at you, telling you to quit.

You don't have what it takes. That sentence? Crap. Terrible. Stupid. Oh, so trite. Can't you come up with something original?

It mocks with a faceless majesty that you can't ever quite measure up to.

I sat in my car this afternoon, the engine off, the radio bleating in my ear. Picture children in the supermarket, screaming at mom for their special cereal, sugar and preservatives all wrapped in bright colors. Mom completely ignores them, wandering isle after isle, comparison shopping her all-natural organic wheat germ.

It was on, but I wasn't listening.

I had my head cranked around, straining and stretching to see that bit of March sun lighting up the countryside. The sun was shining off the trees in the middle distance and was lighting up naked hills looming up behind.

The clouds moved briskly overhead, now letting loose a glimpse of blue and gray, dropping sun-kissed edging like gold-plated marshmallows. All overhead was a maze of different shapes and patterns swirling against each other.

I wasn't watching the clouds though. I didn't look around me. Didn't take it all in with a whiff of fresh air or get lost in wonder and joy. I just stared at this one bit of sunny hillside, lost in thought.

Beautiful, I said, like a... like a... a....

I sighed.

Like a sign from above, a burning bush of dried imaginations, the trees in the middle distance faded, paled and died.

The nearest hill fell into shadow next.

It didn't happen before my eyes. It happened too slowly to register on the eyes and the only thing to tell you of bright sunny days was the memory on your retinas.

Like staring up into the stars an hour at a time, you lie back in the field, your headlights turned off, the radio going softly, playing space jams or Pink Floyd with the windows down, staring up into the heavens. Grass tickles your ankles.

An hour goes by, and the sky hasn't changed. Then you realize that Orion has slipped behind the shadow of the car, when before it was a bright guide in the south sky. It was changing the whole time, and you couldn't see it.

You can't tell but by fading memories of a different sky.

I blinked again. I noticed that more of the hill was falling from bronze late-afternoon sun into darkness. I wondered once if the last moment of wandering sun would light only the horizon, a halo of sun-tipped trees at the edge of sight.

Impressions led me to believe it did, but maybe it was just my imagination. A lost moment before clouds rolled in.

I watched unmoving gray trees under shifting gray skies, still cranked around in my seat, watching the north view.

It was just about then that the patch of blue broke out from behind the building. I can only assume it was the one that had lit my little sliver of view, my little patch of sunshiny daydreams.

Did you ever notice how memories of emotions seem faded and distant? Like you remember saying the word that describes your emotion of the moment, remember things like the feeling of your cheeks being sore from smiling so hard. You remember words like happy, sad, lonely, excited, turned on.

When it comes to events, you remember those; the sun in your eyes, the look on her face, the sound of leaves crunching underfoot. All of that comes so easy. You remember peace and tranquility, and you remember light-hearted smiles and carefree demeanors.

But try to connect with that memory. Try to feel that innocence you slipped into the folds of time with only a picture or a feeling. You're happy and you remember those good times. You're sad and up comes all your darkest days. You're feeling relaxed and content, and you drift among remembered smiles and meals among friends.

You're tired, and your whole world slips away, and everything you've experienced or been or felt or known is just a hazy recollection of forgotten dreams.

To me, depression is that tiredness, depression is that numbness, and it’s that stupid lazy worthless destruction of everything that adds up to you. Really, it's that piece of your brain that speaks to itself, caught in a loop, missing out on the world. Past is just an illusion. The present is fleeting. The future is never gonna arrive. You wind up screaming at yourself for days, telling yourself over and over how dumb this whole process is. How incredibly stupid it is to keep battering yourself.

Imagine Lassie, just done rescuing little Timmy from the well, saving the kids from the burning barn, scaring off the coyotes and bringing back the flock, and she's come home by the fire in the little farmhouse living room. She's chasing her tail, and she won't stop until she keels over from the effort. Dead from exertion, only 35 years old in dog years.

You wonder if she wanted to stop. If she thought to herself in her little doggie way, "This is dumb! Why am I doing this? Why can't I just snap out of it and go play fetch or something? God, it hurts so much!"

And her heart explodes and she's dead. 35 years old, in dog years.

I guess the really depressed person envies that stupid, stupid death.

I guess I'm not the really depressed person. Well, maybe I am, just a little.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe you're the creative type. Maybe there's just one thing that will drive you more nuts than anything. Maybe you just can't bear to feel blocked. Maybe you hate your inner critic, maybe you want to kill him, crush the life out of him with your bare hands. Maybe you want to chop him into little bits with a meat cleaver, maybe run the hunks of decaying flesh through the wood chipper. Feel blood running hot down your arms, dripping red from your elbows and staining your pants. Maybe you want to strangle the little bastard in his sleep, anything to get you your fix again.

Maybe you'd do anything to feel that connection again, to feel brilliant and witty and amazing and anything, anything at all.

Maybe you're just telling yourself that. Maybe you know a hundred ways to feel alive, a hundred ways to wake up your spirit, a hundred ways to fire up that spark. Maybe depression is not doing those things; maybe it's not knowing why you don't do them.

Maybe it's sitting in your car, watching the sun recede from spring trees and hidden pockets of snow, and not knowing what to say.

© 2004 U. Maynard