So SAD

Last fall when Dennis was urging me to go south for the winter, as I have done many winters past, the idea didn’t appeal to me. For one thing, arthritis has now disabled me so much that I don’t feel comfortable living alone away from family and friends. For another thing, I had plans to do lots of creative work and wanted to be in my own work room with its sewing machine and  collections of thread, fabrics and a host of related tools and materials. I had visions of finishing a wall hanging started nearly two years ago and making one or two more, so I elected to spend the winter here in eastern Kansas.

I chose to be here during the worst winter in many years. We have had weeks of bitter cold and now lots of snow.

How much creative work have I done during this great opportunity? None whatsoever. Oh, I sewed a few things, all practical items. I’ve gotten so far as to lay out the wall hanging and the materials I need to finish it, but I can’t get started.

Instead of pursuing my objective I cook and eat and sleep and read a little. I experiment with making lard biscuits.

I bake bread. I exchange soup recipes with friends. (Curried cauliflower and sweet potato soup was delicious the first time, tasty the second time, and intolerable the third time.) I pace the house, going from one unfinished task to another. I feel guilty about having tricked ten Tiger’s Eye beans into germinating. They want so much to live and have no soil to nourish them.

I can’t even decide how to dispose of them. I'm both lethargic and restless. I’m on tenterhooks about everything.

This, I learned yesterday, is a pretty good description of seasonal affective disorder, with its appropriate acronym, SAD. I’m sad and I desperately want this winter to end. I long for the spiritual and physical revival that comes with the vernal equinox. How do the Russians, Scandinavians, and Alaskans keep their sanity during those long, long winters?

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer