All week I have been thinking consciously about what it’s going to take to pull myself out of my winter psychic funk.
“Do you really want to go back to sleep? Don’t you have a blog to write?” says my spouse Janyce as she walks through the bedroom. NPR is playing on the bedside radio but our sunlamp alarm clock has since turned off and the actual sun, peeking out from behind the clouds, shines through the crack of the closed curtain in brief flashes.
“It’s a strategy,” I say, pulling the covers up to my chin. Today is day one of my month long intermittent fasting program and I’m not eating until 10 am. Why get up if I can’t have toast right now?
Janyce buzzes by me again, fully caffeinated and in her workout clothes, talking about Monarch butterflies and how we should make the entire left side of the front yard into a pollinator garden. I force myself up, find my laptop and bring it back into bed with me, propping up pillows and opening up the curtain a little more, adjusting my still half-lidded eyes to the florescent yellow-green outside.
All week I have been thinking consciously about what it’s going to take to pull myself out of my winter psychic funk. I read somewhere that spring cleaning is a crucial part of our nature as human beings and to “‘spring clean’ means to wake up from a melatonin-induced slumber of spirit and mind.”
I started with rage cleaning the garage last week. I’m not even sure what caused it, but I needed the anger to propel me to rip apart all the the Amazon boxes that were piling up and gather all the paper grocery bags stuffed in the corner. And then I took another few hours on a different day to empty out all the drawers and cabinets in the house, collect all the plastic-wrapped fork/knife combos from months of takeout, all the little green Starbucks coffee stirrers, remove seven different bottles of shampoo from under the bathroom sink, and sort through piles of papers that were left on every surface. It worked to lighten my mood even if only for a few moments.
Yesterday, I scheduled a half day out of work to make a few appointments in the city and I took the back roads just so I could drive by the flowering trees in Brookline.
As I sat in diverted construction traffic, I managed to snap a quick picture from the drivers side window. I have to remind myself that spring is short and worth the effort of noticing.
I also signed up for a day-long virtual seminar on the pursuit of happiness, picked up some new walking sneakers, got the gray colored out of my hair, and decided to try a recipe for bulletproof coffee.
“Your coffee, m’lady,” says Janyce dropping to one knee by the side of the bed, her arms outstretched with a large cup in her hand.
“Wow, that looks just like the picture,” I say. We both stare into the top of the frothy mug and I take a sip.
“Not bad,” I say. I can’t even tell that there is no milk in there.”
I hand the mug to Janyce to try.
“Wow, that’s pretty good,” she says. “I think this just might work for you. Now get your butt up. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”