Seasons

I am a very seasonal person.  Seasons effect my mood, what I eat, what I drink, and how I sleep.  I don't know if it is because of training from childhood, associations with particular situations, or just the molecular make up of my being.  

In the summer, I like vegetables and fruits, I stay up late and wake up with the sunrise, and I like heral tea, water, and  light color beer.  In the winter, I am the total opposite.  All I want to do is sleep, I like meat and bread (lots of bread), dark beer, and lots of coffee.  In other words, I hibernate.

So last week, I realized I was very depressed.  I did not want to do anything but watch T.V., sleep, drink coffee, and eat bread.  Normally I ease into seasonal routines and remain productive all year long.  I chalked it  up to a horrible year, full of stress and endless paperwork and a not horrible but not great Christmas vacation.   After the Christmas hoo-rah-rahs I decided to get some rest, but felt bad for not doing anything.  After a few days of moping, I woke early with a mission to fix my bad attitude.  I promptly showered, dressed, put on my "Awesome Apron"(picture above in a brilliance of green and purple flowers, with extra deep pockets, and long ties in the back), and cleaned.  Somehow cleaning, for me, clears my mind and washes away bad feelings in order to move on.  While happily cleaning and organizing, I came to the conclusion, the root of my problems were due to the weather.  Instead of snowy cold it had been more like late spring weather, uncommon for this time of year.  While pondering this, thinking of more positive productive thoughts, my mind wondered to my associations with my apron.  Funny, I know, but my apron is very special.  It belonged to my grandmother, hand designed and sewn from extra material out of need and necessity.  She called it her "gardening skirt".  It was worn for gathering ripe vegetables, to hold essentials tools, and most of all to protect "good" clothes from the dirt and sweat from working outdoors.  She, like me, had an obsession with productivity, "Idle hands make an idle mind".  So when I wear this magical garment, I feel more productive, needed, important.  

I really don't know how long this train of thought lasted, but when I gazed back into reality something caught my eye.  I noticed the happy dogs were now whining and for some reason I could not see well outside.  That morning, I awoke to 55 degree weather but for some reason in my moment of clarity I saw that it was snowing.  Not just a few flakes, but a steady "peppering", so hard that it looked like a foggy haze.  I ran in to look at the temperature, thinking that I must be hallucinating, but it had dropped 28 degrees in only 2 hours.  

My conclusion:  My apron is magic.  I needed clarity, order, and seasons to act like seasons.  In my act of reaching this clarity it must have generated the forces needed to awaken my grandmothers apron, causing chaos to become normality.   Awesome!