Of course, last winter I started on the St. John's Wort, along with lots of exercise (when I could stay awake), and fairly regular trips down to Florida—one a month, November through February. But it still got me. The trips made it worse in a way, because coming back plunged me into a funkier funk than the one I was in when I left.

The thing that happens to me is I just want to barricade myself in my cave and hibernate through the whole thing. Wake me up in the Spring. But sometimes that's just not a practical approach. So aside from popping pills and light treatments, I usually try to have some projects going on.

I've been working on this painting of sunflowers for my friend Chuck for a couple years now.


I always take it up again in the dead of winter, paint another sunflower, and then it sits there on the easel all summer long. Until I'm depressed enough to go at it again.

It's hard on everyone, though. The medical establishment makes a distinction between "winter blues" and all-out SAD, but no one disputes that the amount of light we get—even the kind of light we get—has a real impact on mood. That's what I'm going to blame mine on, anyway.