Some people live for summer. I’m not sure if that is a holdover from when we were all in school and had summers off and that’s when we were FREE and all the fun happened. We didn’t have to go to school or be ANYWHERE! We could go swimming every day! I know that I looked forward to summers when I was young. But I am 64 now. That was a long time ago.
As we get older the seasons affect us differently. Here is what I wrote to a dear one this morning…
“Interestingly summer has always been a hard time for me. I hate the heat and don’t do well in it at all. Each year summer comes and my mood just goes dark and I feel lost and I don’t remember why and then my dear friend Jeff, my closest friend for the last 20 years, will say to me, “Honey, don’t you remember, you get like this every year at this time…” And then I remember. When autumn comes and the weather cools, which here is at least October, sometimes almost November before it really cools, it’s like my whole body heaves a sigh of relief and I finally breathe. Autumn has always been my favorite time of the year since I was very young. Here it is too warm for too long for me. I wish it was cool earlier and later and longer like it was in the midwest where I grew up when by October you had to wear a sweater, we always called it “sweater weather.” And then real winters when there was snow, and white Christmases. I dream of those times…”
I’m not sure if some people drift through the seasons, having their good days and bad as we all will but no so much directed by the season itself. For me summer is when I have to “batten down the hatches” and simply make it through. Here, on the coast of North Carolina, in Wilmington, it is also hurricane season. I have lived through hurricanes where we were without power for a week and barely survived the heat. Of course I haven’t lived through a Hurricane Katrina, or the horrors of what people lived through last year in Puerto Rico, God bless them, but in my own little corner of the world, living alone, when a hurricane might come it is scary.
Yesterday I was out doing a number of errands after therapy and finally, at my last stop, I wasn’t sure I could quite make it through. The heat and humidity were so intense my glasses fogged up as soon as I got out of the car and you could just feel the humidity pushing you DOWN. And you don’t need to tell me stories about how much worse it is elsewhere or how I don’t begin to know how other people suffer. I know all of that and sympathize but when it’s your life and your world it matters to you and can be hard especially when hanging onto your mental health has been a life-long challenge, precarious at best, and world’s worst when summer, for me, comes. We are only about half way through summer.
It is interesting, to me, how different people are affected differently by the seasons. I know people who hate winter with a passion, dread it, can’t bear to be cold. For me the colder temperatures are such a relief I can barely explain it. Of course while it doesn’t stay cool enough long enough here in our warm coastal region for me my eldest daughter and her family live in Chicago and they nearly freeze to death for months on end there. It’s all relative, I understand. But what I am wondering is not just how the weather patterns affect one physically but how it affects one’s mental health. If you have a history of serious clinical depression, an anxiety disorder that has been crippling throughout your life, PTSD and bipolar disorder, what does the heat do to you, or rather me? It is me I’m talking about here. What does heat do to my brain? And the sun. It’s as though the world is TOO BRIGHT and I can barely stand it. It is blinding to me. Now, mind, when we’ve had weather like we’ve had lately when there has barely been a day in 2 weeks when it hasn’t been raining and at noon it may have been dark as night I don’t do well then either. A moderate amount of sunshine and cooler temperatures is when I feel best. Give me October. October every time. It is my favorite month of the year.
The sun is shining here now, a nice kind of sun, dappled shade coming through my trees. I live in a very old neighborhood with huge old trees. My back yard and the area over and around my deck are so overhung with trees the windows all around my studio look out onto a green world where I see nothing but huge trees. It is beautiful, it is, for the most part, too shady for things to grow well except in a couple of spots, and it gives me just the cover I need visually right now. Dappled shade and air conditioning are how I survive. But still I am out several times a day with the dogs and I can actually feel my mood plummet if I am out too long in the heat this time of year.
I am just kind of drifting today, in my thoughts, thinking about things, about my recent dip in mood (My dear friend wrote to me last night to tell me that my post yesterday made her so sad, and I felt badly about that.) and how it happens at this time of year, each year (which I always forget until Jeff reminds me) and wondering how I might best manage this. Dreading one whole season every year doesn’t bode well being that it will take up a quarter of your life ongoing. The heat has bothered me far worse as I’ve gotten older which, I’m sure, is a big part of the reason my zest for gardening has left me. But one can’t stay holed up in air conditioning for a quarter of the rest of their life, or can they? I wonder.
Just now I am looking all around two long sides of my studio out the beautiful windows at the dappled shade. This, this is perfect. In this moment I feel good. I’ll take one moment at a time and do my best with it. I’m okay right now. It’s a pretty good day.
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
as someone who lives in tallahassee, with summers that go from late april through late september, i totally identify with how hard that kind of humid heat can be. luckily for me i can get away to wakulla springs for an icy swim, or to st. george island, where the gulf breezes blow and the sea welcomes me into its billows. i can sit in air conditioned comfort both in my home and in my car, and in a cafe, or grocerystore. on rainy days, it is cooler and i can enjoy my screened in porch which lets the outside in but keeps me protected too.
we all have to learn to manage the seasons. do i want to move north and deal with long hard winters? no. is there anywhere i’d rather live than right here? the answer is no.
but i am in complete agreement, OCTOBER is marvellous. When i can actually consider putting a -gasp – quilt on my bed! But March and April are beautiful,too, months to put in my gardens, and upgrade my flowers. After 28 years, i’m learning to pace myself, give myself quiet days, writing, reading, cooking, arranging bouquets, taking naps,
throwing in a laundry, creating more stories for my evolving library!
You will find your way through, your coping mechanisms, sometimes just writing about it really helps, yes?!!!
Ah darling Ka what a beautiful picture you paint of your life. I know how you love to go to Wakulla Springs and St. George and it must be a lovely refreshing thing to swim. I haven’t gone swimming in so long I don’t remember when I did. Struggling with so much extra weight for so long wasn’t conducive to wanting to put on a swim suit but it was my favorite part of summer when I was young. And a screened porch must be lovely. Here, as there, the bugs are so bad, mosquitoes, giant roaches that make one shudder. It is not something you want to do even on days where the temps are a little cooler because you come in all bitten up with bug bites. A screened porch must be so nice. I’d love, say, when the weather began to cool in autumn, to have coffee on the deck but the bugs are bad here up until Christmas! And you do so many things. Most of my life is lived right here in this spot, in front of the computer. I need to get more active, but that is a challenge for me too. As I keep losing more weight I am hoping that will change. And yes, writing helps, it saves me…
Love you sweet pea,
M. xoxox
Here in the fabulous county of San Diego, we joke about having two seasons: “hot” and “not hot,” especially if you don’t live on the coast. 😉
I freely admit to being a Jaguar…Summer and Autumn are “my” seasons. Put me in a sundress and fill my jug with iced tea or water, and I’m good to go. In fact, right now I’m sitting outside a Starbucks, and Himself is inside, because their A/C seems to be cranked up to the max. He says, “aah,” and I say, “ugh!” I call him my Penguin.
I have been in NC in the summer, and loved it. Pity we don’t live closer, because we could totally trade errand-running: I would help you now, and you could help me in six months, when I would be kvetchimg in my sweatpants and hoodie.
As to one’s mental state, I will say this: I feel much better when the days are long and warm than when they’re short and cool. I have nothing against the night – I’m still rather a night owl – but it’s easier for me to snap out of a funk, and find myself in fewer funks, with the brighter days…and I’ve lived in SoCal just about my entire life.
Enough from me…continuing to send you cool ocean breezes. 🙂
Ah Victoria, I would have been INside Starbucks with your husband, a fellow penguin! It’s so interesting how these things effect us so differently. I truly wonder if it has something to do with our genetic makeup, where our people came from originally? And you know it’s funny for me because while in summer long periods of dark rainy days can be hard I love it when the time changes again in the fall and it gets dark early. For me when it is dark and cool that is the time to hunker down and cozy in and I love that. Even in summer when it is light so much longer I only really relax when night falls. It is as though I feel more taxed, more stressed, more anxious during the day but when it gets dark I feel safe and quiet as though I have made it through another day and I can count on things being quiet once more when the phone won’t ring, I don’t have to do chores or go to appointments.
But right now I have just sat down with my coffee. This is my favorite time of day I think. Ah, that first sip…
I’m pretty tolerant of all sorts of weather, and don’t really mind the heat if I’ve been acclimated to it. It was much worse to suddenly have bizarrely warm and humid days in the heat wave in Quebec (with our bedroom upstairs to be balmy —yikes – for a day or two, but with a fan, it was fine.). We’ve suddenly arrived to summer-like heat in winter on travels, and it’s OK. My body remembers.
I frankly am more intimidated about thinking about the cold that we might experience in Quebec for a month or so next winter! We want to see what it’s like, but. Our house will be cozy, for sure, but the bundling up bit — that I haven’t done since I was in my twenties.
Light during the day is much more important to my mood, I’ve found, as I’m outside during all seasons. As the days shorten, I’m definitely more gloomy. Hmm, I’d better take that light box that’s buried in the closet to Quebec…
Ah Lisa I wonder what it must be like to have constantly changing seasons with the way you travel? And you’re going back to Quebec in the winter. More power to you. I personally am such a nester I wouldn’t like moving around so much. I like to stay put. And you know I’ve never used a light box but I hear it can be life saving for some people. I’ve wondered about those …
Well, we’ve usually gone to some warmer, longer day place for our winter travels. It gets dark at 3:30-4 pm in December, which are seriously short days for me. I found Germany in the winter pretty difficult many years ago — so that’s why I’m remembering the light box!
It can be rather disconcerting to be in 95°F temperatures in January (as we were in Cuba a couple of winters ago) and return to winter at home, but as I mentioned, it’s the daylength that is the most telling for me. So maybe it won’t be quite as odd to just be in a much darker and colder place in our very cozy house. The key will be getting out and walking, snowshoeing or skiing on the bright sunny days that apparently happen — people keep mentioning the crystalline light (and you can see the northern lights, apparently).
I typed a reply to this yesterday and just as I went to send it my internet went down. So I’ll try again.
I lived in South Florida for 47 years and went to the beach or the pool as often as I could. I loved it. But then I started getting skin cancers and had to stay out of the sun. Once that happened it just got too hot. Tried walking in the mornings but the humidity was too high and the breeze hadn’t picked up yet. Almost got heat stroke.
We moved to the mountains of North Carolina in 2000 where we got 4 seasons and I wasn’t tempted to sunbathe and didn’t miss the ocean so much. But boy these summers can be brutal. Too hot to breathe almost. Like you, I like it when it gets cooler. In Fla when we walked outside it was like walking into a furnace. I enjoy the coolness. BUT, when the winter sets in from just about Christmas (sometimes earlier) when it gets too cold to enjoy being outdoors and there are no more green leaves and it gets dark earlier my mood sinks. I got a special light for it and it seemed to help a bit. I start feeling better around March/April and the days get longer. It is so interesting how each of us are so different. My online friend in Sweden doesn’t like summer either.
I do try to stay in the moment and am doing it more and more these days as I am 82 and getting older. Maybe I can do this more in the winter and get through it better. But first I will glory in the beautiful fall with colorful leaves, cooler weather and just enjoy that. Then see what I can do to help myself during the long evenings with snow and ice. Sometimes during Jan/Feb I long for Florida but since we don’t travel anymore – well all I can do is remember and fantasize while trying to keep warm and cheerful.
Love, Jean
Oh Jean, I didn’t know you lived in Florida. Katya lives in Florida and we used to go there every summer when I was young because my aunt and cousins lived there. I never cared for Florida, too hot for me, and I burned so easily and badly I was miserable going there. Everybody loved the beach but I would burn so badly my mother spread Noxema on me with a butter knife and tented a sheet over me. I blistered badly. That’s what I think of when I think of Florida!
And now we are both in NC but you are in the Asheville area, that’s where we wanted to be but my husband couldn’t find a job there. I would love the snow but then I guess as one gets older contending with ice and snow becomes difficult. We learn to manage where we are I guess. It is raining now, it has literally rained daily for at least 2 weeks and it is wearying. You are the second one to mention those special lights. Lisa mentioned them too and she lives, at least part of the year, at her home base is in Asheville.
You are such a lovely person and you do a good job of making the best of things. And we will all have each other this year to travel through the seasons. I like the idea of that. And I will see you tomorrow night.
Blessings to you honey,
Maitri