Salad Days

I felt seasonally bad, holiday bad -- I really did -- and thought it might be a relief to quit this plane of existence (hey, in winter I have those thoughts while bundling up indoors as if to go skiing, while the dry air deepens lines beneath my eyes) -- until I went to the salad bar --

and loaded up a carton with all I wanted, as much as I wanted, including corn salad, pasta salad, kale salad, beets, imitation crabmeat, greens of every footprint, garbanzos, croutons, tomato; three meals' worth) and went home and ate a plateful --

and realized that in death I could no longer have hot chicken noodle soup with a grilled cheddar on swirl rye -- with kosher pickle --or a broiled trout --

and although there are no bills or heartaches or body aches in the next life, there is also no hard stuff, although there might be wine, and no grilled cheese sandwiches or pasta pesto (world's greatest anti-depressant), so I decided to hang in there and focus on what's good. Ninety percent of the time things turn out okay. The trick is having something or someone to look forward to, and taking a walk even when you'd rather not. The solstice is imminent: December 21 at 10:29 a.m. In its honor I'm throwing an Irish high tea. Already have the Kerrygold butter, the clotted cream, the jam, the tea, the scone mix . . .

Using Apps for Better Sleep and Waking

Two free Android apps for healthy sleep are "Twilight" and "Light Alarm Clock" and I'm loving both so far. "Twilight" reduces the brighter-than-daylight display from your screen (any screen) in the evenings, in harmony with actual nightfall, so you're more likely to fall asleep naturally when you should. I was staying up with business, games, and Facebook on my phone until 1:00 and 1:30 a.m. "Twilight" allows me to go to sleep at least an hour earlier.

Waking in winter--at any hour--is a chore. The sun rises late, and window insulation further darkens my house, disrupting circadian rhythm so I was a zombie in the mornings and and ready to work starting at about 6:00 p.m. -- unsustainable, even with coffee. "Light Alarm Clock" gradually emits mock daylight for up to 30 minutes before waking me with my selection of gentle music and the sound of twittering birds. I set it for 6:45 a.m., actually got up at that time instead of my usual day-wasting 8:30, and witnessed a red dawn: very pretty, but an old sign for rough weather ahead. Here's that dawn, and late morning, the same view the same day.

My Kind of Turkey

It's no secret that my Seasonal Affective Disorder prods me to "Sleep." "Be apathetic." "Don't do anything." All activities are too far, too expensive, too crowded, too tiring. The world is colorless. Furthermore, it rained all day yesterday. I went out into the woods this morning only to get some daylight for Vitamin D.

Wood ears

I saw a deer, who made that squeeze-toy wheeze, and a wild turkey, who flapped away ("Run, turkeys, run!" I said), and, although it's too late in the year for them, mushrooms, including a cache of edible oyster mushrooms and wood ears such as you get in Chinese food (pictured above). Most abundant, however, were the fungi called Turkey Tail and False Turkey Tail. They look alike, but the real Turkey Tail has pores on the underside, and the other is smooth. What you see here gilding a fallen log is False Turkey Tail. Its sunny colors on greenish lichen served their purpose until the sun itself came out. Only 30 days until the Solstice when the daylight begins to lengthen.

"Kommt von irgendwo ein Lichtlein her"

My stepfather's first wife, a lively German-born woman, had fine china and subscribed to Hausfrau magazine, sent from Germany. She, Helen, very sadly died of ALS in her forties. Their house was filled with German objects and handicrafts, including a hand-painted and framed 12-line poem I happened to inherit. My high-school German allowed me to read it. It began:

Immer, wenn Du meinst
es geht nicht mehr,
kommt von irgendwo
ein Lichtlein her. . .

Always, when you think
you can't go on anymore,
comes from somewhere
a little light. . .

It continues to say, "so that you try once again, and sing from sunshine and joy, and your burdens feel lighter, and you again become cheerful."

The poem fits my artificial-sunlight lamp, brought out of storage to glow at my side on dark mornings or late afternoons. Often in September I begin to lose heart, find everything difficult, and enjoy nothing but tiny cups of espresso. I'm one of the millions with Seasonal Affective Disorder, so somebody invented this little lamp, sent to me by my sister Rose. I didn't believe it could help, but it does. When overused (more than two or three hours per day) you feel not sunshine and joy but as if you've ingested too much caffeine.