Wintry Thoughts

The Sun by Edvard Munch

It's been school vacation all week and I could really go for this life on a regular basis; particularly in winter. Each winter season I experience increasing difficulty with going outside. Reclusiveness has been perfectly heavenly this week. I'm fortunate to have a partner who accepts unconditionally my desire to stay in.

It's snowing moderately today in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts. I'm thinking about several things, among them, the fact that I can't write for shit! Maybe I should take J.F. up on her many kind offers to attend her writing workshops. It will have to wait until winter is done, as I currently cannot make myself go out once I'm home from work.

Could it be SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? My older daughter of 20 (I have two), whom I will refer to as Mimi, makes no apologies about her distaste for wintry weather. When she was a little girl, on the first warmest days of Spring, Mimi would come home from school, rush upstairs to her room and come down dressed in shorts and a tank top. She would place a blanket on the deck and lay hopeful in what was left of the day's sun. If only for 15 minutes, she would come back in renewed; perhaps knowing that it wouldn't be long before school was out and that precious 15 mintues turned into all day sunning. Mimi relishes the hot sun on her skin. It makes her feel normal again.

The sun is both good and bad for us. On the one hand we crave it for our mental health, absolutely need it for life itself and on the other we need to protect ourselves from its harmful rays. I'll protect myself in spades as long as I can indulge in its warmth, its light and in the inspiration it provides us to keep on going until it returns in its full glory in spring and summer.

Meanwhile, the snow continues to fall...

P.S.