S.A.D.
By Doc Walton
I suffer from SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, sometimes called the Winter Blues. While in the States I was usually afflicted during the month of February and my affliction would last until the first warm days of March. Here in Boquete, Panama, SAD usually grabs me in October and steals my Joie de Vivre until sometime in November. The worst symptom during that period is that I don’t feel like doing the things I usually feel like doing. The sky and rain that darken the day also cloud my imagination. My motivation to do, well, nearly anything, becomes difficult to summon. This year, however, not all was lost. Although my possibly novel length, current endeavor, tentatively titled “Run Rufus Run” was locked on hold, I was not, apparently, without some creative thought, for I found this small essay scribbled on a yellow pad I keep about for just such muse induced moments:
The thing I like about our “Writer’s Group” is that we are supportive. Sure there is some criticism, but we are mostly here not to disparage but to encourage. We are here to validate that what we do is not nonsense, but rather, worthwhile. Writing is one of our passions, for some more than others, but for all something meaningful. We have a need to do it. It is our art and no art can be discounted because among life’s “realities” you will find that art is a life force, a reason and a way to be one apart on a planet of seven billion people. No one said we had to be separate, had to be different, and yet we are. Our art defines that difference in a way that clarifies, whether the art is deemed good, bad, or indifferent. We do what we do, write, paint, sculpt, or create business models not because some inner drive demands it, although that may be the case, but more likely, because I sit here pen and pad in hand, watching the rain… drunk as a skunk.
