First of all, I would like to point out that today I discovered the secret to avioding the February doldrums, and that henceforth anyone within driving distance of me (ie: I can get there without having to refill my gas tank, since it takes two people to do that) who dares to complain about it, is a total crackhead.
Y'see, cf is right about seasonal disorder. Not only are the mornings far too often grey here, but by the time any of us leave work... The sun's gone already, right?
So we get no sunshiny goodness for months, and our psyches lapse into this haze that turns into depression and the downward spiral ensues.
Funny, how it's well past 1am, I've been awake twenty hours now, from Ben's it's-so-wonderful-to-hear-a-loved-one'-voice-at-any-hour phone call at 5 this morning, to having to hang up after barely a half hour because it was time to climb out of a warm bed into -20 degree weather, to spending the day tossing kids over my shoulder into snowbanks, to fondue-dinner with the crackho ski kids, to picking up my brand new shiny hockey helmet and gloves (the helmet's a shiny black with a shiny black grill and I look meeeeeean innit, lemme tell you) to returning home and finding that my car was towed during the day for snow removal, to driving up and down the streets of my neighbourhood looking for my forlorn little sentra.
We found it, it took us the better part of two hours, and you'd think I'd have been shaken somewhat by the disappearance of my car, and all the hockey and other sports gear I've been stowing innit.
But I'm not.
I'm still glowing.
In fact, it's that same glow I get the morning after a particularly brilliant magic mushroom adventure, in which my exhausted and rendered-frail pathetic human body screams out in one burst of tired agony, and I reach a new level of oneness.
Why?
Because I spent every single daylit hour today, magnified. The sun was so high and bright, that even with comprehensive uber-sunglasses on, the kind that hide half my face, I was squinting against the light rebounding at me off the snow.
It's like a beautiful summer day, magnified a thousand times by the brilliantly white snow, and enhanced by the thin crispness of the air.
My body is screaming in pain, my arms are collapsed against my knees as I type, and my legs can't stop trembling.
My abs are hurting the kind of hurt that you only get from forgetting to eat until that hungry feeling finally gives up and goes away (which, however, is not at all the case since I brought up several hunks of imported french cheese and baguette and red wine to picnic lunch with everyone and we ate like, well, like humans starved for stinky cheese, realli), my back has somehow convinced itself that it will never again straighten out.
Except tomorrow, I'll be standing taller than any previous Sunday, because somehow it just accumulates.
This is euphoria, the exhilaration that makes my nostrils flare shortly before I collapse knowing that today I've made the most of every single glowing minute, and that with every torturous step, and with every cancer cell that my sunburned cheeks are currently fighting...
...with every single sun-streaked second, I breathed nothing but pure air and spouted nothing but laughter.
My throat is sore, not from the cold, but from singing, my eyes are stinging, not from dirt but from the frozen tears that well up when you're grinning so hard you're doubled over and there's a four year old trying to climb up onto your back (oh wait, that's an entirely other story)
and in any case, cf, kaffeine, anyone else -- you'd better plan away a Saturday where you'll be waking up at 5am to come soak up some sun with me, because I just realized --
there IS something I can do to make you feel better, and it won't be just a spontaneous outburst of emotional jargon, it'll be something that manifests itself physically in the way your body suddenly remembers how it loves to be alive, and it'll be something that manifests itself in how hard you whoop with excitement.
And I'm in charge of ski lift tickets this year, so fuck it, it ain't even gonna cost ya nuffin' but some sleep, and we're all still young.
So don't forget to pack waterproof gloves and a fleece scarf, or remind me to bring an extra pair (I even have an extra ski suit, and ski boots, even...)
So.
Everyone.
Go out and get cancer, please, because it seems to be the only way to achieve peace of mind.
*grin*