Ric Hall and Ron Schmitt (Web site; eMail) began their collaborative work in 1983. Prior to that, they would get together for friendly critiques of one another's individual art. One day, frustrated by the inability of speech to convey visual ideas, one of the artists handed the brush to the other, and said , "Show me". From then on, they would often step into each others work.

This two-heads-are-better-than-one type exploration ultimately led to creating in tandem. Hall and Schmitt leapt into oils, water colors, gauche, egg tempera, acrylic, and more, until stumbling upon a set of soft pastels that had been left to Hall by a patron. In short order, the pair realized that they'd found the perfect medium for their style.

Standing side by side, they work simultaneously on a horizontal surface. Periodically, the artists place the piece on an easel to view the progress from a fresh perspective. There is little communication until it becomes apparent that the piece is beginning to develop a direction. At that time, the duo may finally discuss it in a general fashion. They allow each painting to reveal itself organically.

I'm not the kind of writer who can produce on cue. Don't get me wrong; I'm pretty competent at your average generative creative writing exercises: Give me a phrase and I can finish the line for you. Show me a picture and I can spin a story around it. Yet, when it comes to precipitating my own writing outside of class, I need a little more inspiration.

I don't think it's a weird coincidence that many writers are what most people would call...well...crazy. And I don't mean ‘crazy' in the mental health sense of the word—although there's plenty of that going around the literary community, as well. I just mean emotional, unpredictable, insomniatic, slightly obsessive voyeurs. I know that I do my best work when I'm moved to extremes—blissfully happy or blisteringly sad. I write about the roughness of life—falling from great heights, struggling to emerge from the depths. I either don't write at all or write all night long, unable to sleep because I have so many words in my head fighting to get out.  Unfortunately, those times are not at all consistent or predictable.

All my life I thought I was a crazy writer, an emotional artist. That is until last year when I went through a major depressive episode. It wasn't my first; that occurred during my junior year of college. It was a tough time. I broke up with my high school sweetheart; my parents divorced; I began working full-time, in addition to being a full-time student, in order to support myself; my dad remarried, and then was diagnosed with cancer. So, needless to say, I was a bit down. But I never thought anything of it because,  although I was exceptionally despondent, I had a reason to be. Depression was, in my mind, the state of being depressed for no good reason...when everything in a person's life is going well and, still, s/he is miserable. As far as I could see, I didn't have depression; I just had a lot of problems.

Over the years, that continued to be my excuse. Every nine months or so, all the stress and problems and disappointments would build up, and I would become despairing in the extreme for a few days. I always had a reason to be upset, and I always snapped out of it after a while. I was willing to admit that I was more upset than seemed normal or necessary, but I chalked it up to my dramatic flair.

Meanwhile, I had several friends who suffered from depression and I knew all the symptoms. I even encouraged my friend Rebecca to get help when I could see that she, too, was suffering from it. When she hesitated about using anti-depressants, I assured her that it was nothing to be ashamed of; it didn't mean that she was weak. Asking for help was the bravest thing she could do. I knew that I often felt several of those same symptoms; yet, I didn't ask for help.

I never went to therapy. I didn't go after I was raped. I didn't go after my father died and I was unable to cry until months after his funeral. I didn't go after I came out as bisexual to my mom and she rejected me.  I called a therapist a couple of times and made appointments; but, by the time the session dates approached, I felt better, so I didn't go.

Then, in the spring of 2007, I fell in love. Her name isn't 'Megan', but we'll call her that for now, and she was my best friend.  We had an unusually close friendship—seeing or speaking to each other every day, sleeping over at each other's apartments, holding hands as we walked down the street. We told each other everything, bared our souls. We took care of each other: cooking meals for one another, buying gifts for each other for no apparent reason. Our lives were intertwined. I had a key to her apartment. She had a key to my car. We had a key to each other's post office boxes. We needed each other. We loved each other. We said so every day.

After about four months, I realized that what I meant when I said "I love you" had changed from the "pinky swear that you'll be my best friend forever" kind of love to the "I want to marry you, raise children with you, grow old with you" kind of love. When Meg confessed that she was beginning to think that she, also, was bisexual, and that she thought that I was "hot", I thought that we were on the verge of a most perfect love.

One day in mid-May, we had breakfast together and, out of the blue, Meg announced that we could never date. She said that if we ever dated and then broke up she wouldn't be able to be my friend again and that it would hurt too much. I changed the subject that day, but I couldn't ignore the feelings she stirred up in me much longer. A couple of weeks later, I told her exactly how I felt.

Megan's reaction was not what I'd hoped for. She freaked out, got angry, and told me she needed space. When I explained to her that I wouldn't have shared my feelings if I didn't think she felt the same way, she said that she couldn't understand why I would think that she had romantic or sexual feelings for me. She said that whatever intimacy I thought we had shared was all in my head. I was devastated.

Megan didn't speak to me for a few weeks and, when she did, she tried to pretend that nothing had happened. I went away for the weekend to clear my head and, while I was gone, she called to tell me that she had met a guy. I was greatly upset over the idea of her being with someone else. Even so, I was glad that she was sharing her life with me again, so I decided just to suffer through it. I allowed her to tell me all about him and all about their time together. That worked until I got a flat tire on the way home, the next day, and was stranded on the side of the highway for several hours. That flat tire was the last straw. I unraveled.

I became depressed and soon I found that I wasn't just upset about the flat tire, or the fact that Meg had met someone. The depression ballooned out to include my entire life. Everything seemed worthless: school, teaching, writing...everything.  I didn't feel at home anywhere or with anyone.  I didn't feel like I had a purpose. I wanted to find meaning and satisfaction in my interpersonal relationships, but I could no longer feel any connections. Meg came over unexpectedly, one sunny afternoon, and found me sitting in the living room with the window blinds drawn, drinking vodka and orange juice in the dark. I was happy and relieved to see her. I thought that, because I loved her, perhaps she could save me. I thought if I could just hold her hand, maybe she could pull me out of the pit I was in. But I couldn't reach for it. When she was leaving, I wanted to ask her to stay. I wanted to ask her to lay down with me for a little while so I wouldn't feel so alone. But I couldn't make a sound. How could I ask that of her when I wasn't supposed to need her, or love her? I was supposed to be giving her space. Not just for her sake, because she asked for it, but for mine, because I was trying to get over her. Besides, I thought it would go away after a few days.

It didn't go away. Over the next month, Meg asked me many times if I was OK, and I repeatedly said that I was fine. We both knew that wasn't true, but I said it to avoid the inevitable follow up question, "What's wrong?" I didn't know how to answer that second question. I knew that I felt sad all the time. I knew that I felt empty inside—disinterested in things that once excited me and completely unmotivated. I was always tired. Not just sleepy, but tired and achy. I knew that, although I'd never kill myself,  I often prayed that God would just take me in the night; and when I awoke in the morning, I would cry, because I didn't want to be here. Not in this apartment, not in Amherst, not in this world.  Of course, I had my reasons for being depressed—a fight with my mom, unrequited romantic feelings, a flat tire—but it made no sense that I would be this heavy-hearted for this long.

How could I tell Meg that I was sad because I thought she was beautiful in her green dress? How could I tell her that I was crying because, when she wore it, I felt compelled to kiss her bare shoulder, then her neck, then the back of her earlobe? I was too scared to tell her that the pained look on my face was caused by holding my breath and counting Mississippi every time she got close enough for me to smell her vanilla-scented body lotion. How could I tell her that she was what was wrong with me?

Besides, I knew that those reasons were merely triggers that started the downward spiral, but I'd fallen deep in it and the depression had grown bigger and darker than any of those pretexts could be. When Meg asked me what was wrong, I wanted to offer her one of the triggers, but I knew they weren't the whole truth. Unfortunately, I didn't know what the truth was. So, I lied.

Meg eventually got fed up with my foul mood and lack of explanation. She was frustrated by her inability to understand what I was going through, and, in that regard, I couldn't help her. She was leaving the country for a three week vacation and I was supposed to take her to the airport. The day before her flight, she told me that she'd found someone else to take her to the airport because she couldn't deal with me anymore. She was leaving and she didn't want me to come say goodbye.

I fell to pieces.

I called my sister, who lived three hours away in Maine, and told her to get to me quick because I didn't know what I would do now that Meg was gone. I'd hit rock bottom. My sister rushed to my side and, with her help, I set up weekly therapy sessions and got a prescription for an anti-depressant. I looked online for suggestions on how to deal with depression and found a few tips, one of which was to pursue an activity I enjoy, so I signed up for horseback riding lessons. Another recommendation was to break down projects into small tasks so that they wouldn't seem overwhelming, and I began to actually get some work done.  I wrote a list of long-term goals on a Post-it and put it next to my computer to remind me what I still have to live for. I called a few close friends to tell them what I was going through and, one by one, they took turns flying and driving in from places such as Hawaii, California and Philadelphia to be with me as I slowly recovered.

Let me be clear: Meg and my feelings for Meg were not the cause of my depression. My depression is caused by biology and chemistry, heredity (my grandmother suffered from depression and committed suicide when she was forty-seven), and low serotonin levels; however, loving and then losing Meg, and the fall out that both ignited, made me realize that I wasn't just going through a rough patch. I was suffering from clinical depression and I needed to get help.

It's now a year later and I'm doing much better. I continue to go to therapy and take horseback riding lessons. Over the past year, I've rebuilt my relationship with my mother, with God, and with myself. I finished my thesis (and, thus, my MFA degree) and now I'm researching PhD programs. I'm saving money and hope to buy a house in a year or two.