Hammer of Darkness cubed

I don't know whether the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder get more pronounced as one grows older, or whether it's just that I'm better at describing what I feel as I get older. The sun setting in the late afternoon, the loss of daylight affects me in a negative way. The clocks going back on the last weekend of October is the time when SAD kicks in, although I suffer only mild to moderate symptoms (subsyndromal SAD). 

Symptoms I get each year are increased appetite for carbohydrates (comfort foods vs say, salads); difficulties with concentration, and lower levels of cheerfulness and sociability. "Loss of interest in activities" is another one. I tend to sleep longer - an atavistic nod towards mammalian hibernation. Without pre-lockdown alarm calls to wake me, my body clock tells me when to sleep and when to rise. In summer this tends to be around seven and a half hours, while in the dark months it lengthens towards nine (last night I slept from 23:10 to 08:15 this morning).

Yes, I can get over these by self-administering Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - writing this post is part of that - and of course, exercise is very effective at lifting mood. But the craving for sunshine is powerful. 

Thinking back to the beginning of lockdown, the sun set at 17:43, nearly TWO HOURS(!) after it set today (15:47); within two weeks of lockdown, the clocks went forward, and so the sun set at five past seven. Suddenly, three whole hours of afternoon and evening daylight more than today...

This would happen anyway; but there's an epidemic going on, and the most powerful man on the planet has been deprived of his power but does not intend to let go. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo's tweet two nights ago saying that the White House was busy working on a second Trump administration chilled me to the bone. I woke up at quarter to three and could not go back to sleep for worry. The prospect for the world of Trump forcing Republican members of the electoral college to go against their state's preferred candidate is terrifying - American will go down the plughole of fallen empires faster than any in history.

Then there's Covid. As I wrote before, we don't know where we really are. OK, fewer cases reported today. But yesterday was a public holiday, so today's figures should be treated as a Monday (lowest of the week). Will they return to a frightening growth trend or start to plateau? Who knows. How many cases go unreported? Half as many again, or two, three, five, ten times as many? Who knows. Antibodies, herd immunity, vaccine availability - who knows. What I know instinctively is that if you suffer from SAD, your immune system is weaker than in summer, and you are more prone to picking up viral infections. This is one reason why we have seen the current dramatic increase in cases in the Northern Hemisphere (meanwhile Chile's new cases hit a peak in mid-July and are now a fifth of that level).

On top of this, Poland's neighbour Belarus faces serious unrest as another jumped-up despot refuses to accept the results of an election that overturned his rule, and people are being kidnapped or beaten to death.

So in the meantime, I hunker down, avoiding people as far as possible. The asymptomatic carrier could be entirely innocently super-spreading Covid among the more vulnerable.

It's just under four weeks until 7 December, the first of ten (!) days during which the sun sets at its earliest, that is 15:23 (in Warsaw). It continues to do so until 17 December, by which time a rapidly approaching Xmas (or Christ's Mass) tends to lift spirits. The pagan feast of Sol Invictus, the invincible sun, that by 26 December is noticeably setting later (by four minutes) had been a celebration of this turning point. Then we get to Blue Monday, claimed to be the most depressing day of the year. Next year, this falls on 18 January... This may lead to another uptick and rising number of Covid cases, and a third wave.

And two days later, we will see Trump being ejected from the White House, by force if needs be (the US armed forces swear allegiance to the Constitution, not to the president). The only one-term president of modern times to lose two consecutive popular votes.

Once we pass that moment, in 68 days' time, my guess is that the pandemic will be well and truly on the wane. By then, spring will still be a way off, but there will be more daylight. A third wave will not be as deadly nor as rapidly spreading as the second one here in Poland.

Hope and Healing - the catchwords for 2021. I hope. There will be a spring, but first the healing powers of Lent.

This time two years ago:
Magic day, in and around Jakubowizna

This time three years ago:
Warsaw-London-Ealing

This time five years ago:
With my father and brother in Derbyshire

This time seven years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time ten years ago:
Setting sun in the mountains

This time 11 years ago:
That learning moment