Description: A Nondrinker's Guide to the World
Ever since I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I’ve heard about seasonal affective disorder (SAD) , which the National Institute of Mental Health defines as “a type of depression that comes and goes with the seasons,” usually during the winter. People up here in this seasonally dark, misty, and dreary corner of the US often invest in sunlight lamps, load up on vitamin D, or—if they’re extremely lucky—spend the winter months in places where the sun actually shines more than a day or two in a row.
But I never experienced true winter doldrums until this year, when Seattle hit a record 30-day stretch of rainy days, and had one of the rainiest days on record. Besides the rain, this winter has brought a mist that never seems to lift—the kind of foggy shroud that makes you open your blinds, close them again, and leave them that way all day. Why bother? You know what’s out there.
I’m not of an income class that uses “winter” as a verb, but I have found a substitute for the second home I’ll buy just as soon as I’ve bought and paid off the first one: California! The light is perfect, the fares (from most of the Western US, anyway) are reasonable, and there’s a good bet you’ll get sun at a time of year when you may be starting to give up hope that winter will ever end.