Seasonal Blues

Autumn is here and we have had some exceptionally lovely weather. The sun has been generous, the temperatures, although cooler, have been mild and October has never been more colourful and beautiful yet I’m feeling like I want to hide and never come back up for air. I know what it is and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it until I can work out how to get out of the mire I’m currently wading in. Right now it’s dealing with the feeling low and down in the dumps – this is the mild form. I have manifested some much worse traits as a result of this seasonal affective disorder and that varies from extreme anger to absolute apathy. You can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be forgetting my birthday too. I have never been as unexcited about any milestone in my life as I have this particular birthday. Having read my friends blog recently I wonder at how much depression exists out there. I’m subject to my moods yes, but every winter is steadily getting worse and this year particularly has been stressful and tiring. The summer (my usual respite) seems to blur with work men walking in and out of my house as they plastered, painted and repaired what was literally falling apart. I felt like Gollum, spitting and hissing to leave my precious alone. But it was necessary to do what had to be done. It doesn’t make me feel any better though. I hate living like a squatter in my own home – it’s a freaking nightmare. Now things have settled somewhat but they are nowhere near finished. I haven’t yet mustered the enthusiasm to pick up a paint brush and finish the master bedroom. I’ll just stare at the plastered ceiling for the next few months and pretend it’s the latest in the Dulux range. If I feel like it I might just paint a smiley face and hope for the best.

So I’m 40 very soon...am I supposed to feel the earth move? Well, put it this way I’m more confident in my own skin and I have no illusions, expectations or insecurities. I am what I am. Honed over 40 years I am now this person of the present. Isn’t the present where we always exist? Well, here it is. All that has gone is past; don’t even think about what’s to come. No point. I’ll just get a headache and frankly, I have no patience for one of those. My solution to my birthday blues is to actually cancel it. I will simply not acknowledge it. It’s easier and expectation is neutralised. Besides, I’m in too negative a state of mind to celebrate anything. You see! Total apathy; like 60% of the electorate now whinging about the government  having  vetoed their right to vote. They couldn’t be bothered and yet they moan about the state of the country. Didn’t vote? Well you have no right to complain in my opinion, so shut up!

I have begun to enter hibernation mode. This is my body slowing down, trying to adjust to the changes occurring in the natural world and yet we still have to function as normal. No time to adjust always onwards and fuckwards. The routine continues relentlessly like a persistent bad smell and we keep going like demented chickens. I think about the harvest. My daughter celebrated the Harvest Festival with her school in church last month. That time of year when you bring in a tin of something for those less fortunate in the community who could do with an extra tin of beans, or spaghetti hoops. I always provide the tea bags and the evaporated milk. Nothing like a cup-of-tea when the going gets tough and money is scarce eh? Still, I felt like crap after that service. I thought of starving human-beings, failed harvests and general misery. “We must give thanks,” preached the headmistress, “for all that we have.” And so we should, because if I give pause on the subject of another’s misfortune I might just implode from guilt and that nagging feeling of total ineptitude. I want to do something more than just hand over tins of custard. But what?

Looking at our own lush fields the seasons are identifiable simply through the processes that occur in nature and those people who live by that law; the farmers in their tractors toiling the land collecting the harvest, leaving behind a beautiful blanket of brown earth. The trees too look like they are ready for their fancy dress party – leaves of all colours adorning the branches waiting to fall down onto the ground ready to nourish it. These are the transitory months directing creation in one form or another. Winter is death and never was it more poignant than seeing a dead fox the other day; road kill that has often left me a little uncomfortable. I have seen dead cats, squirrels, birds and all sorts of creatures foolish enough to not recognise the danger in the speeding tins that humans drive around and pride themselves on. My daughter was perturbed to see the dead animal. It was only just deceased judging from the lack of rigor in its posture lying flat out on its side. The bright orange fur was still bristling in the breeze, beautiful yet very dead. The age has begun where the existential questions are being asked.  But this morning she averted her eyes knowing the fox was still there and said nothing. Almost like mentioning it was to acknowledge its death again and she didn’t want to talk about it. We walked past the carcass in silence.

My grandmother is 91 and we think her long life is coming to a close very soon. I spoke to her briefly the other day and she tells me she is very tired: ‘It has been many years and the body is failing’ she tells me. It’s true that her heart is slowing, beating to the last of its strength it seems. We think she is not long for this world and although I am poised for the inevitable I am never prepared for death and I fear it. She is the last of that generation in my family. The top tier is making way for the next. Longevity is generous it seems with us. Not everybody has been fortunate enough to have had that.  So we celebrate the sheer luck of having got this far. My aunt and mother told me that she reported seeing beautiful lights shimmering above a framed photograph of me in her bedroom. In the past, upon occasion she has been known to witness unexplained things and lights and auras is her speciality it seems. I’m not one for believing a great deal in psychic ability (cynical old me) but my grandmother it seems has a gift of sorts which she never really thinks of as extraordinary. To her it’s normal and nothing unusual. She comes from an era that accepts this kind of thing as fact. No questions needed. It’s all about faith and acceptance. In all my questioning and faith in science perhaps I have lost my sense of wonder in a way. We view things so clinically sometimes that we lose our soul to the black and white world of facts and material gratification. Have I sunk so low?

Let me enjoy the autumn before the winter of my discontent begins in earnest.  The sun still shines, the earth still spins, and the spiral of life goes on. Perhaps I can learn to be more gracious in my 40’s? Time to think and give something back to this wonderful world I live in. It’s not about selfish old me anymore.