Touchdown For Autumn

Driving up Spring Street the other day, a wonderful realization occurred, it was a sign we are half way through autumn.  It's now easy to find a place to park in the good section where the parallel parking allows one to glide in, then glide out, not having to do the Spring Street, angle-parking, back up into traffic-exiting-a-full-ferry, thing.  Sitting for a moment behind the wheel after parking, I breathed out a long breath and smiled with a warm feeling of contentment.  A happy surprise.  The visitors are gone.

"The visitors are gone" does not apply to family and friends, who come to the island to break up the mild monotony of the bucolic life.  It only applies to strangers.  And although life changes in the islands each year with the departure of the visitors, life here does, in fact, depend on the kindness of strangers.  Tourists pad the revenue stream here, of course, but also, there's the vitality a boatload of happy vacationers brings with it.  The flux in population is part of what make the San Juan Islands what they are, and for the most part, visitors are happy people.  So when they arrive it's good, and when they depart it's good as well.

The study of autumn continues, and as the last of the visitors watch wistfully from the rear deck of the ferry as it detaches itself from the dock and chugs away, other signs of the season reveal themselves.  Leaves of yellow, orange, and red now litter the streets, a good kind of litter.  The air has gone from crisp to brittle.  It's cold.  34 degrees this morning with eight weeks to go until the equinox.  The amount of daylight is still quite tolerable.  Equinox to equinox is twenty six weeks.  That means it's been eighteen weeks since June 23rd with enough light in the sky to say hooray!  Looking at a year, that's 36-16, a reasonable showing for any sport, and the game's not over yet.

Speaking of sports, for many, they are an enjoyable, or exciting, or even ecstatic element of the fall season.  For me, not so much.  Scratch that, make that not at all.  I did not force my child who preferred picking daisies on the soccer field to persist until the all American competitive bug bit.  One season of freezing my own buns off on the sidelines was enough for me.  I'm a sit by the fire, have another cup of cocoa kind of cold weather aficionado.   I do however, relish a good analogy, and keeping score of how autumn is doing on the scoreboard of the seasons quite appeals.

So let's look and see how the game's progressing.  The end of Daylight Savings Time is just around the corner which means less light for the commute home.  Technically another shift into winter.  My commute home is exactly ninety seconds, so not a biggie there.  Besides, "Spring forward, Fall back" is the better end of the deal; it's the one time each year we get an extra hour of sleep.  How could anyone not like that?  And the end of Daylight Savings Time means more light in the morning for a little longer.  It also does the opposite of what the beginning of Daylight Savings Time does, it shifts the daily schedule back an hour.  Much easier for the body to adapt to than getting up an hour earlier in spring.  Another point on the score board for autumn.  But finding a place to park on Spring Street?  That's a touchdown for Autumn.  That's six points for autumn, I believe.

Look Out Winter

If you live near the Canadian border and do not know what S. A. D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is, or do not believe in S. A. D., please go read someone else's blog about pink ponies and have a nice day. Last winter I had S. A. D. I was sad, but I also had S. A. D. I was taking a cancer prevention drug that makes one more prone to S. A. D.

Then, mid winter, my mom died. Not sure exactly what caused it, but now I know what it's like to have it. It passed and now I am much better. However, not wanting to go through that again, with the recent passing of the Fall Equinox, I've been studying daylight with much more interest this year, monitoring my mood as we here up north begin our plunge toward the very short days of the third week in December.

Never one to leave anything of interest not completely examined, I got to wondering about what I missed while daydreaming in astrology class. What causes the earth to have seasons? Time for a visit to Youtube in search of an explanation:  Sun Earth Seasons. Oh, that's why it gets dark at 4:00 pm. Okay, not so terrible. No big mystery. I like science, it is much less scary than the alternative.

This year I'm being proactive. I'm armed with no more cancer prevention, estrogen neutralizing drugs on board, yay! Also in the arsenal are a "happy light", 5000 units of Vitamin D a day (yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw that report too but I'm not ready to give it up), walking, more fruits and vegetables (no, really), less alcohol (not sure about that one), a full size Lazy Boy couch, a big screen TV, a stack of good books, a gargantuan knitting project, permission to get in bed at nine pm (never thought that would sound good), and enough money in the bank to buy a ticket to Mexico if all of the above mentioned do not work.

Winter, prepare to have your ass kicked.

Stress reduction is another weapon in the arsenal this year, so I'm walking. Walking early in the morning and immediately after work is illuminating. One becomes instantly aware of how much light is in the sky at 7:00 am and again at 7:00 pm, the time the evening walk usually ends. You see, it's all about paying attention.

Already I've learned a couple of things by talking about the quality of light... to others and by simply observing Autumn. First observation? Sometimes it's sunny in the Fall. That's a good thing, a very good thing. Second observation? The trees here really do change color in the Fall, something to be celebrated as apposed to the alternative of not noticing and walking around in a "head down, here comes winter again, life sucks" funk.

You see, that's the other thing I'm armed with this year as we head into winter. An attitude adjustment. The panacea everyone likes to talk about that often is not enough on it's own. But mingled with many other tools? It really can make a difference. Just look, I only used the word "suck" once in this post. Now that's progress. See you around, and try not to be S. A. D.