Matalascañas (Huelva), a photo by sky_hlv on Flickr.
p. 165
'Then someone stands up and says the alarming and predictable thing: "Well, if van Gogh had medication, we wouldn't have all those masterpieces, would we?"
I can't help but reply, "I think we'd have a lot more of them."
Which, I guess, is a way of saying that a little serotonin reuptake inhibitor seems to have saved my life. It became clear, in those dire days of dragging myself to the library, that I couldn't get out of the slump by myself. And truly I don't care if this is the placebo effect at work or not, the moment when suddenly I feel a change: I'm standing at an intersection on Eighth Avenue, waiting for the WALK sign, and I feel a shiver up my spine, and the sudden impulse to hold my head up, to stand up straight - how long has it been? and something within me looks around at the world and says, "Oh, right, here I am."'
Mark Doty, Dog Years, 2008
http://www.markdoty.org/
