Seasonal Effective Disorder

Years ago when the shadows of autumn would generate "that beautiful light"and the evening chill no longer came from the Pacific-fueled fog but from the Arctic Circle I would sink into a mild depression. Waking up from the lengthening night in the morning would require two hits of the snooze button. My workout routine would slow, adding a layer of blubber to my waistline in anticipation of the coming winter. Typically, a mild form of OCD would kick in, as I would obsessively flip to the weather page to calculate daily rate of diminishing hours of daylight.



Since moving to Ridgeback Mountain, I no longer suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. The shortening days, the disquieting October heat waves, the eager anticipation of the Day of the Dead, all of this no longer sends me into a funk. Quite the opposite, actually. Every Autumn Peter and I suffer from incurable Seasonal Effective Disorder.



It's organic, but I don't think it's some kind of hypo-mania. It's fueled by the spirit of the harvest and the impending election not an imbalance of serotonin. As the days get shorter, Peter and I go into chore & task hyper- drive. Here's an example of a recent Sunday:



6:37am, awakened and noted with surprise that the dogs allowed us to sleep in

6:52am, sipped coffee in bed, watching re-runs of the Daily Show's election coverage

7:08am, started cataloging the day's chores

7:27am, opened the jumb cooler in the garage where the grenache noir has been fermenting for the past two weeks, removed my slippers, entered the cooler, and paced up and down to crush the grapes with my feet for the next half hour (count to twenty in place, shift position, count to twenty, shift position...)

7:57am: Hand strained the crushed grape juice/wine into plastic buckets...

8:34am: Washed my feet, noticing an unfortunate scratch on my foot

8:42am: Headed to the vegetable garden to plant starts of kale, broccoli, collards, and cauliflower. Contemplated pulling up the tomatoes, but instead considered whether or not I'll have time to make green tomato preserves the following weekend...

9:24am: Hop into the shower to attend to Wine Country Says No on 8 steering committee

12:17pm: Return home to join Peter as he organizes a pile of oak and manzanita in preparation for next weekend's firewood preparation.



I was exhausted and it was not even 1:00pm. The rest of the day included picking limes, par-boiling tomatoes and placing them in freeze bags, loading our legal wedding photos on to our computer and drafting a No on 8 fundraising email.



These days leading up to the "fall back" to Standard Time feel like a game of Beat-the-Clock. Before rain becomes a regular possibility, we are compelled to tend to the garden, the wood pile, and the pile of mason jars in the garage. Add an important election and the level of activity accelerates. The good news is that I no longer feel S.A.D. in October. The bad news is that I'm exhausted. I can't wait until those days in December or January when the rains don't stop and I spend my weekends napping in front of the fire (from wood chopped on Halloween), sipping pumpkin soup (from the pumpkins I harvested and roasted in October), and watching DVDs of television series I am too tired to stay up to watch.