Sad at Midsummer, Again

Flowers from my garden, 2020 (Margo D. Beller)

Every year, in late July going into August, I start feeling sad. Perhaps it is the continued heat and humidity forcing me inside with the air conditioning while the weeds proliferate. Perhaps it goes back to the days when I was a student and I knew that, come September (or August when I was in college), it would be time to go back to school and I'd lose my freedom. Or perhaps it is seeing the darkness in the early morning when it was once light, or seeing the sun's arc getting smaller as the days get shorter.

So it is this midsummer, except it is worse because this is not a normal year. It is the year of the coronavirus and things may never be the same again.

My life is one example. Doing simple things such as going to the supermarket or getting my hair cut has become more complicated. I have been working from home since March and will continue working from home through the end of the year, and likely beyond. I am OK with that. I find I am less and less comfortable walking outside where I can come into contact with people except for when I can get myself out early to walk on a trail and listen for any birds. But getting up and out is getting harder to do and I am feeling disconnected from nature. I try to go out on the weekends for a walk with MH or to run errands such as to my favorite farm market, particularly now that it is tomato season.

Tomato, basil and peppers, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

Here, too, things have become complicated. I must be masked, stand six feet from a guy behind the vegetable bins, pointing to what I want, asking it not "be so wilted." Where once zinnias and other flowers grew for picking, every inch of land is filled with a variety of vegetables. That's a good thing because this farm feeds not only casual shoppers like me but members of its CSA community plus it donates produce to local organizations feeding those who would otherwise go hungry. (But for the grace of God that could've been me, too.)

To keep myself from feeling too sad, I think of what COVID-19 hasn't changed.

My flowers - yellow coreopsis, white daisies, purple coneflowers, goldenrod and the deep red flowers of the cannas - are in bloom. If I can't pick the farm's flowers, I can selectively pick my own.

My vegetables are growing, finally. I am waiting for a dozen little green cherry tomatoes and two large, still-green Italian frying peppers to ripen, and there will be more to come. The basil continues to produce big, green leaves I pick for sandwiches and to make pesto.

Fritillary butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Hummingbirds have been visiting the canna flowers in the front yard and the feeder in the back. At this time of year the females need energy to find insects to feed their young. Soon the young will need energy to hunt and may follow their mothers (the fathers will have left long before) to the feeder. The birds started coming later in July than usual but now they are more frequent visitors.

The house wrens are long gone. They and other birds will be heading south soon, if they haven't already started. Those passing through won't be as gaily colored and they won't be singing territorial songs but knowing they're out there might be just enough for me to leave the house and reconnect with the outside world, in spite of this pandemic. The birds need to head south to reach their wintering areas and what we're going through will not affect nor deter them. Those not flying as far south will be stopping (or staying) in my yard when I put the seed feeders back out after Labor Day, less than a month from now.

Monarch butterfly (RE Berg-Anderson)

Butterflies will be heading south, too. I have noticed more tiger swallowtails on the purple flowers of the butterfly bush and some of the smaller butterflies such as the fritillarys. I am waiting for the first monarch butterfly to come.

The days will get even shorter, and there will come a time all too soon when it will be dark before 5 p.m. The inevitability of that depresses me. August is my late mother's birth month and the month her mother as well as one of my good friends died. It adds to the sadness of the period, much as I try to enjoy the flowers, birds and butterflies.

I expect I'll get out of this funk eventually, as I do every year. This year it might take a little longer.

I Hate Winter!

Every year it seems I feel the need to express myself about how winter makes me feel. I feel down. Why?

Winter is cold.

Snowfall, New Jersey (Margo D. Beller)

It is often as dry outside as it is in my heat-filled home and my skin quickly turns to sand paper.

There is a good chance of snow and ice.

It is hard to get out of bed in the morning, much less take a long walk.

Just as I am finally feeling awake and alert the shadows get long at 3pm ET, so I know darkness is only two hours away. That means I have to take in the feeders at 5pm so they won't be attacked by bears overnight (until they go to their winter dens. But who knows if they will if our climate continues to warm?). If I have water dishes out for the birds, they must come in because the water will freeze when the temperature gets below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

When the weather is expected to be very bad, say a major drop in temperature after an unusual warm spell, the birds attack the feeders. Chickadees, titmice and white-breasted nuthatches grab and go while house sparrows and house finches sit on the perches and feed until I chase them off so the other birds can eat.

Winter days are short and that depresses me. It reminds me of my mortality.

Winter intensifies a feeling of loss. One friend is mourning the recent death of his sister, while another's wife succumbed to cancer in August. December reminds me of friends who are out of my life such as the one who stopped talking to us five years before his sudden death in 2012, just after his 56th birthday. We found out about it through the most accidental of circumstances. He went to his death with his secrets. I turned his age two months later.

I used to send real holiday cards in the mail. Each year my card list grows smaller because someone has died, stopped talking to me or, more often, greetings are received virtually, via email and Facebook. And even when I do send a card there is little to say aside from I'm still here and still alive despite the best efforts of mankind (cars, diseases, stress) to kill me, and that I hope for peace the next year.

Maybe that's enough.

I try to remember things that are good about this time of year. There is a starkness to the winter landscape that is striking. Hanukkah and Christmas and Kwanzaa bring colorful lights, clothing and food to cheer otherwise gloomy and dark nights.

Winter landscape - Great Swamp (Margo D. Beller)

And, as MH reminds me, the beginning of December is the time when the sunset is the earliest it will be. It will remain that way for about a week and then the sunset times will gradually get later. (However, sunrise times will continue to be later, too, so the days will continue to appear short until the winter solstice on Dec. 21. Then the sun will start rising earlier.)

My friends should know I am working to give myself a reason not to be depressed. Seeing some family for Thanksgiving helped. Seeing some friends over the holidays will help, too. So will filling out the few cards I'll be sending, hoping to receive some in return. There are still birds to be seen during the winter including those at the feeders and wild ducks on all types of waterways.

If I can wake up, see the sun shining and have the energy to make my daily trips outside to put up the feeders and the water dishes for the birds, I'll be satisfied. But I'll be happier when spring finally comes.