(This is a rerun from a prior year, but it’s true for me every summer year in Florida — I slump!)
I’ve heard it said that redheads have fewer sweat glands than other people do. Perhaps that’s why I have never adapted to Florida’s long, hot summers, though I’ve lived here for years. When I get overheated, I can’t seem to cool down like those lucky people whose bodies know how to perspire.
Thus, as our summer months wear on—all six of them!—I go outdoors less and less, my excursions a series of scurries between air-conditioned spaces. In between, I sleep too much, accomplish too little, and ponder too grumpily the meaning of a fully climate-controlled existence. By the end of August, if I’m not careful, I’ll be spending all daylight hours indoors, watching sitcom re-runs while I eat peanut butter out of the jar (which is even less fun than it sounds).
My summer doldrums seem related to the northern malady called SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is clinical depression brought on by protracted gloomy winters. I’m not depressed, but I do believe I have something I’ve tagged “Southern Latitudes Underdiagnosed Mood Problem,” or SLUMP. This is linked to the other syndrom I’ve identified: “Weather-Humidity Induced Negativity Experience,” also known as WHINE.
SLUMP and WHINE are problems, for me and for the people I live with. Whenever I have any problem, I turn to books on the topic, but, not surprisingly, there are no books on SLUMP and WHINE. And I have already read, during previous summer doldrums, every generic book ever written about how to kick the blues. Twice.
So, in a change of tactic, I’ve been reading books about happiness. There are a surprising number of them, and they’re not all rah-rah, positive thinking stuff. If you, too, are trying to hang onto your last shred of good humor until cooler weather arrives, you might enjoy the best of the lot, a book that made me laugh out loud and was full of interesting tidbits about happy people and places. It’s The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World, by Eric Weiner, whose last name, he points out, is appropriately pronounced “whiner.”
Weiner starts his journey in the Netherlands at the World Database of Happiness, then globetrots to places that rank particularly high or low on that institute’s happiness scale. My favorite chapter was about happy Iceland, where there is no one with SAD because, scientists theorize, that genetic strain could not survive at all in a land where it’s pitch black all day long for months at a time. The coziness and camaraderie of that dark, chilly place sound perfect to me right about now. And no hurricanes!
Weiner includes a quote from Benjamin Franklin that I had never heard before. “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness,” said old Ben. “You have to catch it yourself.” I do believe this is true, and I will be working on that, just as soon as it’s cool enough to chase after anything at all. Stay cool, sweat if you can, and thanks for reading Our Town!