Today I looked up from the mess of my desk and saw the sun shining like melted butter through the window. I stood up, got my coat, and went outside for five minutes, just to stand on the sidewalk in front of my office building and turn my face up to the light like a sunflower. It was weak and watery and hardly warm (-8 today), but it was heavenly.
This winter hasn't been as long as last year. Last winter began in October, but this year it really didn't get cold and yicky until January. There has been intermittent sunlight, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds like glimpses of summer. I haven't felt the blahs descend quite so heavily this winter as last. I look at the calendar and remind myself there's really only two and a half more months until I can start thinking of planting seeds under my grow lights. Surely I can handle two and a half more months. If I keep myself busy -- exhaustingly, Whirling Dervishly busy -- I might get through this without too much trouble.
I'm reading Gretel Erlich's account of seven seasons she spent in Greenland, where the sun disappeared for a great part of the year, and I don't know how people can stand living there. Parts of it sound fantastic -- such expanse, such clear air, such challenge, living life distilled to its most basic components. I don't mind cold and isolation and remoteness. But I could not live without light.
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