One of the many benefits of living near one of the world’s great cities is reading a major metro daily since you were old enough to read. The kind of paper that employs Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists. Mary Schmich took note this week that we are in “the psychological pit of winter”.
“I’ve told this story before but it’s worth telling again, because we reach these depths every year. Here in the pit of winter, the novelty of the new year is long gone and spring is still a rumor. Day after gray day, we’re either underdressed or overdressed because, inexplicably, 6 degrees can mean something wildly different on Thursday than it did on Tuesday.
We wear boots as heavy as bricks and coats that smell of old sweat because, inexplicably, it is possible to sweat even when you’re freezing. Snow shovels strain our backs, icy sidewalks menace our bones and the routine act of taking out the garbage becomes a herculean feat.
We can find things to love, of course. Every season has its charms. But the charms of this one are as fleeting as snowflakes. We cheer the sun, then the clouds come. We admire that fresh snow, but it’s soon a pile of snirt. We tell ourselves that staying indoors is cozy, and it is, until it makes us crazy.”
Chicago Tribune, February 12, 2021
She went to see her internist a few years ago, trying to avoid (perhaps) misusing the term “depression”, telling the wise Polish doctor “I’m blue”.
The doctor listened, thought, and then she replied: “It’s February”.
“And that was all the medicine I needed. The disease had been named — February! — and the naming of it was the beginning of the cure. I went back into the cold, gray day with a lighter heart, and every year since, I’ve conjured those comforting words as medicine.
Are you anxious, lethargic, mad at half of everybody? It’s February.”
The “self-medicating during a pandemic” story is a cliché, but Schmich mixed up her own medicine, in the form of a list of all the little bright spots in Chicago right now. And encouraged her readers to make their own.
I’ll play.
What does that look like in my world?
My number one is the same as Schmich: there will still be a hint of daylight after 5:30 tonight. As the columnist points out, we add two minutes of sunlight a day.
What else?
- We’ve got these cartoonishly fat robins who have made themselves at home on our back porch, eating what’s left of the berries off the burning bushes and flitting about the bare branches of our trees. Sitting and watching them through the front room window is endlessly entertaining.
- I’m a sucker for blue sky and sunshine. Even if it’s 5-above outside. Five minutes (OK two most days) outside before class changes my whole outlook at 7:20 am.
- My backyard neighbor has two dogs who hang out on their deck every day. One large fluffy white (Husky maybe?) who is extraordinarily chill, just stretches out and surveys the neighborhood. And a muscular black I’m-not-sure-what-breed who works tirelessly to alert the homeowners of any movement nearby. Bark-bark. Bark-bark-bark. It’s like the Odd Couple of dogs.
- I’ll hold on to the 2016 World Series Championship til the day I die. The expected eight-peat never materiaized, and the Cubs are rebuilding, but it’s impossible to not be mildly optimistic when pitchers and catchers report to spring training. And if not, at least you don’t live in St. Louis.
- Valentine’s Day means I speak the language of love. Food.
Also: my youngest bought his mom a card and a box of Fannie May. Without being prompted by me. And put it out on the dining room table for her before he left for work at a ridiculous hour of Sunday morning. Well done. Very well done. That’s a good kid right there.
- The liturgical season of Lent begins Wednesday. I’m opting for jambalaya rather than gumbo on Mardi Gras day for dinner, but the next day provides an opportunity for a reset. Folks can deride Lenten sacrifices as “Catholic New Years’ Resolutions” all they want, but the opportunity to grow spiritually, while growing more humble is a practice I find great value in. A nun I’m connected with online has written a daily devotional centered around the ancient practice of memento mori. I’ll be journaling may way through Lent for the third straight year. This year she’s adding an email prompt for reflection and prayer. I’m looking forward to the community and the support.
- And (perhaps oddly) I’m kind of optimistic about school right now, remote learning or no. My school has a tendency to jumble rosters at the semester so I’ve got a mix of familiar kids and kids who are getting to know me and vice versa. That means we are kind of duplicating the “back-to-school” energy in the depths of winter. My school is closing and a couple of weeks ago the district hosted the process for teachers to select their assignment for next year. My department is moving over almost intact along with our principal to the same building, and we all know a lot of the math teachers who are over there. There’s a lot of ways that process of mixing groups from different places can go sideways but I think we are all looking forward to working together. We will be attending (virtually plus one in-person) a series of PD days on the New Tech model which we will be implementing next year. I’m feeling a little rejuvenated. Which is good, 18 years in.
There’s a Winter Storm Warning for me until Tuesday morning. It involves lake effect, which means (as one local TV weather shop put it), anywhere from 1 to 12 inches of snow, depending on location. That’s some irony right there – a foot of snow on a day we already were scheduled off. The in-person learners by me are gonna be kind of sad about that.
But who knows? We get the top end of that forecast, maybe they have a five-day weekend, which under ordinary circumstances is kind of hard to come by. I’ve been telling my kids for years that once January is done you don’t want any more snow days. All that can happen is you go to school on Presidents Day, or on some day in June when you’d rather be on the beach. But, an unexpected day off, where time kind of stops….
In the Psychological Pit of Winter, sometimes that feels like a fair trade. Just what the doctor ordered, in fact.
Tweaking For No Reason 