2001-01-31 - 20:36 MST

January 31, 2001

SAD Dad

No panic, no emergency, just time for my pre-spring wallow to get in practise for the season to come.

Just as John Bailey and others say, "A bit of whinging." The order from self, "Get cheerful you jerk, smile and keep up a good front." This is the nadir of each year for me. My frame of mind is more or less, "Just get on with it dammit, stick it out, better times are coming."

And they do, yeah they do, every year. If I am lucky at the right time I will espy a crocus peeking out of the snow, it warms a bit, buds begin swelling, daffodil foliage begins to poke up from thawed earth, there begins to be the wonderful smell of Spring. A bit along the time line there is the green haze among the trees that hints there will be real leaves there once again. Then the Forsythia begin the tremendous crescendo leading to full blown Spring. My sequencing might not be quite right, but all of the foregoing are a beautiful part of spring.

Here where I live there is a pond on the premises surrounded by buildings and a sometime population of ducks. When they are here, there is no doubt of Springs arrival, the drakes are in full pursuit of their lady loves. The show is fantastic, looks like a convention of skyfighters. Just, well - - - they are not fighters they are lovers. They fly between the buildings, swerving, diving the, drakes sometimes close to the girls and the girls putting on the steam as if to say, if you want to be the daddy of my kids -- you better step on the gas buster. I still chuckle about the lady tenant who remarked, "I just can*t understand why those ducks are so mean to each other." I replied something like, "Yeah, you know it seems to happen every spring too." Lady never turned a hair smiled and walked on. Was she really that unknowing ?

Later on in the Spring the clouds begin to go into pre-summer formation and build a thunderhead here and there.

Spring is the glorious promise of the total fecundity to come. It is to me youthful growth personified, like the blooming of a little baby just getting established in the wide, amazing world.

Spring has all the great smells I remember, and the fine sounds that I can just hear a little bit. The earth is throbbing, ready to split it is so full of energy. The sun rises earlier and lingers a bit longer each day.

But here in Denver there is at least a month and a half of serving time in the jail of winter for this convict of Seasonal Affective Disorder. More time with all the lights on in the apartment, keeping the drapes closed if it is snowy or dark cloudy throwing them wide aside if the sun comes out to smile on us.

Here in the apartment, I am retired and don't have to sweat out icing my way to and from work, don't have to shovel snow, we can stay in the apartment with our car safely in the underground parking and not have to scrape frost and ice off the windshield. We can wait until the streets are burned clear by traffic before we venture out to the store or restaurant. What a cushy life, huh ?

Well 'tisn't all that bad, by staying busy with various little projects inside and taking walks when it is clear of snow and warm enough that a light wrap is adequate outside. I manage to maintain a measure of decorum and equanimity with only a growl once in a while and a mope now and then.

The only truly abusive treatment I receive is that I have nothing to eat but food, nowhere to sleep but a soft bed, nothing to read but books, magazines and newspapers, nothing to play but Solitaire, crossword puzzles, Scrabble and the fool. No loving one nearby but my dearest Heather. Damn aren't I in a fix ?

This time of year it is too easy for me to show displeasure at almost anything, easy to lose my temper over small things. The underlying cause is SAD and I know it and hold a tight rein on my muzzled self. Animal fashion, silently, mentally serving time until the sun brings again to us Spring and sprightly happiness.

Man you should see the sprightly in this creaky, cranky old bag of bones. The main indicator of my sprightly is that my eyes sparkle a bit and the corners of my mouth turn up and I no longer snarl and snap at everything (as reported by cautious observers). There comes a time every year that once again there is freedom from gloom and the happy release of the SAD Dad . . . . . . .

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