Rocks in Our Heads

Everyone I speak to is beginning to be a little weighed down by this long space of dreary weather. There’s been only one day that I remember in the past three or four weeks that seemed like a day you’d like to spend more than ten minutes outside. Ed commented this morning that this was the longest spell he’d been unable to fly in the past ten years. People who didn’t plan vacations for this part of the year are asking themselves what they were thinking of with respect to that lapse. People who did plan vacations for this time of the year but then couldn’t go for various reasons (usually medical in my age cohort) are asking why they have been so stricken by bad luck. I imagine those people who planned vacations and then actually left for foreign climes are chortling poolside as they raise their little drinks with parasols to the beauteous setting sun and the balmy breezes drifting through the palms. I doubt if they are thinking of us, although they are doubtless thinking they’re glad not to be where we are.

And then, those of us concerned with the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C., are wondering why this is turning out to be the longest period between an election and an inauguration in the history of western civilization. Hope in the face of weather and now the promised new administration does indeed seem audacious. More audacious than we are up for. We find ourselves asking why, if we are facing the greatest national crisis in 70+ years, we are having ten inaugural balls next week.

Probably we’d all be feeling a lot better if we went out for a brisk walk, even though it is cold and wet and foggy and windy. Exercise comes with this promise of making you feel better. They’re always saying that exercise is the best medicine for feeling depressed; the very fact of doing it, they promise, will cheer you up. But then, we ask, if exercise is so good for you, why is it that I’ve been doing it for over thirty years and I still don’t like it? By contrast, I quit smoking over thirty years ago, and I still (occasionally) miss that. Something wrong there. Maybe I should quit exercising and see if quitting would make me miss it. Maybe I should just go out for a brisk walk. I feel like I've got rocks in my head.