“What’s depression?” I asked my father.

“It’s all about the power of the mind,” he said.  “The only thing that will make it go away is your own determination.”  He ran his hand over the window ledge and frowned at the smudge on his fingers.

When Rosa was happy our house was filled with music.  I could never imagine the silences returning.  The light in her studio burned through the night.  One summer she painted Corry Head.  The gorse blazed like a fireball.  Purple heather covered the rocks.  She painted it with the mist falling down and hiding all of the color.  I wondered if that was what her life was like.  Always trying to escape from behind the mist.

–from “To Dream of White Horses” by June Considine

 

There is so much about his passage that speaks to me.  The father’s misinterpretation of how it is to live with depression.  The son’s seeming lack of information, yet more complete understanding.  The descriptive pall the illness brings – both literally in the dust that builds up and metaphorically in the mist that envelops the person suffering.