Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
OK. I’ll admit it. I’ve been miserable. There was the unpleasantness over Christmas, which involved the discovery of several substances new to science, all brewing like bad yeast inside the cavities of my head and ejecting themselves with varying degrees of urgency. That didn’t help.
Then there was the weird weather. This time last year I was struggling into work through various blizzards. This winter has not only produced more water heaped on us all than I thought there was in the oceans, but it hasn’t even been cold. Not once. So far.
Doing the cloudy-breath thing
Now I know that the word ‘cold’ does have many meanings, according to your attitude or actual experience. I once went to a talk by a writer who set her latest thriller in Alaska. For reasons of artistic veracity she made a trip there in winter, and described wearing so many clothes in temperatures of two-figures below zero that she couldn’t move her arms, while the locals were going about in shirt sleeves, saying things like – ‘This is nothing! Wait until it drops to 60 below!’
My definition of ‘cold’ requires having to chisel ice and/or snow off my windscreen every morning and doing the cloudy-breath thing, and we haven’t had any of those days yet, even though we’re in the middle of January. People are thinking that the weather’s behaving strangely. How can they tell? What’s normal?
Pure selfishness and indulgence
The third thing that has made me miserable lately was having to go back to work. I’m making no excuse for myself, I’m very lucky. I work in an office so I get to sit down most of the day in a reasonably warm environment (notwithstanding those who keep their coats on and complain about the cold). I just didn’t want to go back. I’ve been pining for the delights of being at home and getting up when I wanted. I know. Pure selfishness and indulgence. I became a trial to my loved ones and I made myself less loveable.
Another reason I’m lucky is that all through the storms and winds and lashing rain we only suffered a partial fence collapse because the soil round the concrete at the base of the posts turned into soup, and we had no water for part of Christmas Day. So many people had it so much worse.
Both sides of the isobar
I think it’s the dark. For most of the week I don’t see my house in daylight, I dehutch and rehutch the rabbit every morning and evening in the dark (maybe I should get an automatic rabbit), I drive everywhere in the dark, and then it rains. Since I started to write this the blue sky has gone and the rain’s falling again. It can seem endless.
But there’s always something to notice that can remind me how crazy and wonderful life actually is. Perhaps it’s the hat and the downcast eyes, having to look where I’m walking in case of puddles or worse, that stops me looking up so much. One of these moments has literally just happened. My office has windows along opposite walls. For a minute there I looked out of one set of windows and it was raining quite hard. But the sky was still blue and dry on the other side. That’s never happened to me before. How wonderful.
It was not just good, it was sublime
That’s the second nice thing I noticed today. The first was my journey to work. Sometimes I catch a bus for an hour-long journey to Ryde, and I usually have to stamp through the cold wet morning to the bus stop in the rain and the dark, but today it was quiet and not cold. I climbed upstairs and set the music on my phone to shuffle. Outside, as the day began, I rode through the dawn and watched the Island come alive around me, to a soundtrack of wonderful music, and it was not just good, it was sublime.
We are animals still, and we react instinctively to our surroundings. The weather and the light affect us and alter our mood. I let that happen for a while, and I was miserable. My rabbit is very affected by the weather. When it rains too much she squats in a pool of misery, glaring at everything and everyone, but when the sun shines she’s out scampering about on the grass and it’s a joy to see.
Here’s a small quiz
But we’re also more than animals, and we can overcome this and change our own mood by finding things that make us smile and realise that life is still great, even though it’s raining, and cold. And dark.
Here’s a small quiz. What follows this?
Doo be doo doo
Doo be doo be doo doo –
Be doo be doo be doo doo
Doo be doo be doo doo …
I noticed some nice things today, now I’m singin’ in the rain, and I’m happy again. I hope you find some joy during your day too.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
Image: Angel – SaintEvil – all JAMAICAN under CC BY 2.0
Image: jinterwas under CC BY 2.0
Image: Art Goes Here under CC BY 2.0
Image: Public Domain under CC BY 2.0
Image: RipleyM under CC BY 2.0
Image: public domain under CC BY 2.0
