Tag Archives: mood

Winter blues

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It’s still 17 days away to the shortest day of the year, but we are already at the point of seeing almost no sun outside of working hours. This is a time of year that I really wished I lived somewhere closer to the equator. It’s not just a trip to the shortest day, it’s also a trip to cold, wet, and sometimes snowy days for the next couple months.

This is when routines really matter, when motivation to exercise is really low, but the exercise itself is more important than ever. This is when eating well is challenging with Christmas festivities, and time off work for the winter break becomes an easy time to break your fitness and eating routine.

I’ve tried a new routine of writing at night so as not to squeeze my morning routine, but I didn’t really develop the habit and I’m back to writing in the morning. Except on weekends. Weekends are already slower and I haven’t written my posts on a weekend morning in weeks. Thus, I know the holidays will be a challenge to maintain my habits.

It’s a really busy week ahead, and I’ll be home late most nights. It will feel like besides my morning routine, the only things on my agenda are work and sleep… and dark, rainy, gloomy skies… and the cold. Yuck.

I need to remember to find moments of joy at work and at home. I need to make sure I’m eating well and taking my vitamins. And most of all, I need to remember that before I realize it, spring will be here. Every year seems shorter, faster, and so winter will be but a distant memory soon enough… the trick is finding, no creating, memories of this winter beyond the darkness, wet, and cold.

As my coffee mug says, “What a great day it is today!”

The power of music

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Almost everyone can quote the first line of this poetic verse from William Shakespeare’s opening of Twelfth Night:

“If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe’er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.”

—

A young boy is so in love that he hopes if he has too much of it, like food he would get sick of it… lose his appetite for it. But despite this hope the love continues, as he actually desires.

—

Next week I’m going to a Tangerine Dream concert with a high school friend who introduced me to this band and others like Jean-Michel Jarre, and Kitaro. At the time the depth of my musical appreciation was Led Zeppelin, AC⚡️DC, and The Who. I was taken into an alternate dimension of musical breadth by my buddy. He made me experience music in a way that was a full body feeling rather than an experience for my ears. I didn’t truly feel music yet, that came a few years later in an NLP communication class, but for my teenage years, this musical experience was transformative.

I used to listen these more alternative bands/musicians before bed. I’d fall asleep to instrumentals that altered my mood and calmed me. No mind altering drugs required, just a tape cassette player, and my bed.

I still use music to alter my state. I have a play list for working out, for writing, and for sleep. Each one different, each one designed around my desired state. I’m not musical, I don’t play an instrument, I don’t want to take the time to learn… but I do enjoy using great music to set the mood for me. I will always let music feed me.

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

Ready for a new day!

Am I really? No. I want to stay under the covers for three days. I’m not sick. I’m not even tired. I’m just feeling like I want to stay home and do nothing. No things.

But I’m up. I’ll get the day going. I’ll start a little slow. I’ll start doing morning things. I’ll wind myself up like an old watch, and make sure I keep ticking all day.

If you ask me, ‘Are you ready for the new day?’ right now, I’d have to say ‘Absolutely not!’

But I will be. I’ll get my heart rate up. I’ll feel a sense of accomplishment getting this post done. I’ll meditate (poorly) but I’ll permit that to be ok. I’ll spend a bit longer in the shower, hot water soothing me, and a cold rinse at the end to shock my system a bit.

In a couple hours I’ll be at work, and ready for the new day. But right now I’m just using my routine to get me there. Because some days are tougher than others to get started, and I’m going to be honest with you, this is a tougher day to get started.

That doesn’t mean it’s going to be a tough day, just a tough start. I don’t have to let this morning feeling define me. And it won’t.

Onslaught of clouds and rain

I grew up on a tropical island and I have to say that winters here can be tough. No, we don’t get the snow and cold of Toronto, the city I went to from Barbados, but the rain… the winter wind storms, the clouds…

We have had a couple breaks where we saw the sun, but so many days this winter have been sunless. And when I say sunless, I mean that at any time of the day the cloud cover is so thick that when you are outside you can’t determine where in the sky the sun is? The sky is a sea of dull gray. This gets to me. As much as I hate the cold, I’d trade a week of frigid weather and snow, just to see the sun in the sky for more than a single day.

This morning looks like we could have a break. I’ll have to take a small walk at lunch, and enjoy seeing and knowing where in the sky the sun is. I’ll charge my solar batteries and prepare for more clouds and rain in the week ahead.

Cue the Annie Lennox song: Here comes the rain: “Falling on my head like a new emotion.” – Or at least a melancholy emotion. There is no doubt that this rain plays with my mood like a sad violin solo… one that I really don’t want to listen to right now. I can hear the tune but don’t know the name of the song or the composer. It doesn’t uplift me, it sustains my mood, waiting for the sun, an external source of light, to lift me from the dole-drums of winter.

Look up

It’s a long weekend, and I’m thankful for the extra day. As I summarized in a Twitter reply to someone yesterday, “On the ‘blah’ scale of 1-10, I’ve been a solid 9 all weekend.“. I ended the day yesterday passed out on the couch with my workout clothes on, and no workout started.

I feel cooped up, motivation is low, and I have had no desire to work, watch TV, listen to my book, exercise, or do a host of things that I’ve put on my home ‘to do’ list.

But today is a new day. The sun is shining. I slept well, I’ve watered the new grass, I’m writing, I’m looking forward to my meditation. I know that my workout will be hard enough to remove the guilt of not working out yesterday. I’ll go for a walk, I’ll knock a couple items off of my to do list, and I have a conversation on Zoom tonight with my grads and their parents that I’m looking forward to.

Sometimes we just need to look up… in more ways than one.