January 27, 2009

Curing SAD During Dark Winter Days

January in Michigan means the sharp smell of wood smoke in the crisp winter air, the windblown drifts of purest snow outlining the soft contour of the compost heap, the thrill of skidding on one heel across an icy parking lot with an armload of groceries, and the chore of chipping snotcicles from the tip of your frostbitten nose.

But as wonderful as this season may be in so many ways, some of us are not all that crazy about the fact that we get to see the sun for maybe an hour a month. Not only are the days ridiculously short, we also have a brooding shroud of clouds parked overhead pretty much from November through March.

The Gray Days are so profound around here that they can cause their very own form of clinical depression, a psychological disorder with maybe the most appropriate acronym ever – SAD. This stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder, which pretty much boils down to sufferers being clinically pissed off about all the crappy weather.

SAD is really common in places like Scandinavia, spreading deep and persistent despair up there where they have even shorter, grayer days than we have, and nothing but Volvos to drive.

You can treat SAD by sitting in front of a bright white therapeutic light for half an hour, once or twice a day. If that’s not enough to cheer you up, I sure don’t know what would be.

Last weekend we had a freakish lack of clouds here for a few hours, so I went for a walk to soak up a little bit of sun, and to visit some Austrian friends who were holding an “Austrian Curling” tournament on the lake.

In the version of curling we usually see on TV (when we can’t find any Star Trek reruns to watch), one player slides a big “stone” down the ice at a bunch of other stones. The part I like best is when two teammates carrying brooms run along with the stone, scrubbing the ice like crazy, and shouting gibberish back and forth with a guy at the other end of the ice.

I kind of thought Austrian curling would be just like that, except maybe instead of sliding stones down the ice, we would be sliding the Austrians. It turns out that none of the Austrians did any sliding, at least not intentionally, and for that matter there were no brooms. But there was some shouted gibberish and a fair amount of hot spiced wine, so we all had a real good time.

It’s funny how much it can boost your spirits to see a little sunshine. As we all stood chatting on the lake, watching the moisture in our breath freeze in midair and clatter to the ice, we kept remarking on what a beautiful day it was. Of course, maybe the company of friends had at least as much to do with the beauty of the day as the quality of the light.

Now that I think of it, I can remember many years ago, sliding down Kid-crusher hill on a toboggan, hanging with a death grip onto whoever was in front of me and squeezed almost breathless by whoever was behind me, all of us woven into a stocking-capped child-link chain. I can remember the end of each run, our chain collapsed into a body pile of snow-crusted kids, all of us laughing so hard we were choking, smelling like wet wool mittens and Juicy Fruit gum.

I can remember skating on a frozen tennis court that some nameless benefactor had flooded for our benefit, cheeks burning with exertion, swatting the one hockey puck we had with our pine hockey sticks, and digging frantically for it in the snow pile whenever one of our slap shots came up a little frisky.

I can remember being in snowball fights that tactically duplicated major Napoleonic artillery battles, finding refuge from the bombardment behind the snow man we had been so careful to protect while we were making him just a few hours before.

What I don’t remember about any of those days is whether the sun was shining. Knowing the odds, probably not. I guess back then if we needed therapeutic lights we could always find one lying in the snow right next to us.

Making snow angels.

Copyright ©2009 Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.

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