Coping With A Critical Shortage Of Sunlight

No matter what one's ambitions are, the one central issue that really matters with all goals is a person generally needs to get their story straight. Me more than most. If your brand of truth puts God on your side and you get a bunch of fan mail encouraging you to be even bolder, then that's another story. I wouldn't know about that. I don't know what God is any more than I know what the truth is. Sometime it seems like about any ol' truth is okay with me, because I don't know how to call the truth a liar. I'm attracted to Colbert's use of the term "truthiness". I'm easy. Just get close enough to some truthiness I can sort of agree with and I'll pretend to go along with you for the sake of moving on down the line.

I went to the cafe I go to a lot for lunch today. The only seat available was with this old man who prominently uses a walker and sets it out in the aisle where it gets in other customer's way. I'm trying to figure out if he does that deliberately. I'm getting nowhere with that. I've sat with him before. He drives over from a small town or village about twenty odd miles away to have breakfast on Sunday morning in this cafe in his Sunday's best. He's pretty spiffy. A goodly number of people speak to him and call him by name as they pass by the booth. I found myself a little envious of the attention he received. That's what you get for being a nice person. No blame. Next time. I'll be nicer next time, but I would say that, wouldn't I.

I understand the weird reasons I paint myself in a corner to isolate myself better now, but I haven't always acknowledged doing it for that reason. My acting that way has helped me deal with the world as I've created it with my priggish preferences. This trait has become more translucent and openly conscious to me for about a year now. I couldn't help noticing that I wasn't leaving the house as much as I was even a couple of years ago. I wasn't leaving that much even then.

This relatively new reclusive phase started about the time I began experiencing real and enduring pain in my joints from the arthritis. I became preoccupied with dealing with the pain. I kept expecting it to get better. I guess I was in denial that I had an incurable disease.

My last visit to the rheumatologist at the VA Hospital in Durham resulted in an upgrade on his initial diagnosis. He told me I have two kinds of osteoporosis instead of one along with the rheumatoid arthritis. This didn't bode well. He didn't cheer me up when he shrugged his shoulders and rudely pointed out:

"You'll be seventy soon, and stuff like this starts showing up around this time. You might as well get used to it. You're gonna be on this medicine that makes you extremely nauseated for the rest of your life." I could have done without the shrug.

The old man I was having breakfast with spoke with a ragged voice that sounded damaged in some way and he was difficult to understand. I remembered some of what he told me about himself from the other time I sat with him, and that helped me to figure out what he was talking about occasionally. If he got lost in what he attempted to tell me, then what I remembered helped me to ask him leading questions to get him back on track.

The dank chill in the Spring air brings back other memories of waiting for the weather to warm up and stay that way. I've been through lots of false Springs. Enough to not get my hopes up that barefoot weather comes and stays at this time of the year. It's gonna be cool and edgy this way for the entire seven-day forecast. Not really warm, but nearly freezing at night. It's warmer in Chicago for Pete's sake. At least the sun has come back out to stay a while.

I didn't think about the psychological affect of persistently cloudy gray days like the Northeast part of the country is famous for. I only became aware of it at all when it was talked about on the TV weather reports so much. I was intrigued when it was announced that people up in that area bought special house lights that simulated sunlight to fight off depression that apparently accompanies such dreary weather.

I still don't know a lot about the technical details of how that sort of depression happens. I do know after that I began to notice peripherally when there were a succession of cloudy gray days wherever I lived. I formed a conscious habit of paying attention to how a lack of sunlight affected me. Along with what I'm learning about vitamin D and how the production of it in one's skin can be important, I've became quasi-convinced there is something to what happens if you don't get enough sunlight. It's pretty much like the effect of the length of the days getting shorter and shorter after the summer solstice.

The lack of available sunlight, whether it's because clouds get in the sun's way or because the daylight hours get shorter due to the season, is the specific reason political and religious leaders have traditionally created a lot of holidays in the Fall months to ward off the holiday blues inflicted because of the days getting shorter. They have been doing it for as long as there has been a recorded history. Damned clever of them, don't ya think? The homo sapiens species is the best one we've created yet.

After New Year's it's a long dry spell of no holidays until Easter. Holidays are not needed because the daylight hours increase day by day. There is hope in the air. People began taking off some of their winter clothes and expose a lot more sexy skin. That alone is enough to entertain even restless natives. Holidays? Who needs them. Life's a beach...