When brought low by a case of the wintertime doldrums, the temptation is to ride them out, waiting for the mood to pass, or, worst-case scenario, the arrival of spring. That strategy works more often than not, but hunkering down with a comforter and a screen on the sofa also means raising the white flag to misery. When it’s mid-January and your backyard is a tundra of ice and wind, those April flowers can look a long way off.
Time perhaps for a session or two with Dr. Winston. Churchill, that is.
The Black Dog
Since his death in 1965, Winston Churchill’s biographers and armchair psychologists have spilled a lake of ink arguing about that great man’s mental state. A few have declared him manic-depressive, which is the most far-fetched of these analyses. Others say he suffered from periodic bouts of profound melancholia. Many, such as his daughter Mary Soames, believed that his low periods were normal, especially given his personal and public trials.
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
