Rainy Days Blues
Sog and bog, muck and yuck – it’s a normal Western Washington winter. And unfortunately for so many of us, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real thing that rears it’s nasty head every winter, right about now. The joyful holiday season is behind us, we were blessed with a magical white Christmas, now all that’s left is to hold on till spring. It’s a good thing we’ve had enough experience with these winters of ours. At least nothing comes as a surprise. Of course it’s dark out – it’s 3:30 in the afternoon, after all. And of course the streets have become lakes. The storm drains are clogged because most of us don’t bother to keep them clear of the massive fall of leaves! It’s just too wet and miserable to be outside doing our civic duties.
“It must be a great time of year to be a writer,” my friends say. And it would be if I could just stay awake! I bought an Ott lamp and it seams to be helping. The bulb emulates natural sunlight and fools the brain into thinking it’s a nice sunny day, and as long as I don’t look out a window, it works pretty well. It also helps to use ear plugs so I don’t hear the constant pounding of rain on the roof and the snapping of branches breaking from trees in the forty mile an hour gusts we’ve been having.
I know it would help to exercise more. But then I’d have to get out from under the Ott lamp, garb up in rain gear, swim to the car, and drive through the lakes to get to a gym. I think the best thing to do is sleep on it. Maybe tomorrow will bring a whole new way of looking at winter. In the mean time…zzzzzz…
Later,
Mary Ann
I know this will surprise you–it did me!–but my first reaction to
your Rainy Day Blues made me homesick for the good old days
when newcomers would complain about our Puget Sound weather
and, although I tried to be gracious, I was thinking, “What wimps.”
Maybe I’ve been living in the desert too long. In AZ we’ve been
praying for RAIN in a record breaking year, but when I was
in Sno. County last Thanksgiving, a bit of rain put a frown on my
face, and I worried: Is it going to rain all day? And it did.