s.a.d.

S.A.D. stands for 'seasonal affective disorder" and if there ever was a time for anyone to feel it, it's right now in dreary Toronto. The temps have moderated and a lot of the snow has melted but for the last five days or so, the sun is nowhere to be seen. The clouds are low, a constant mist or rain or sleet in the air. Leafless trees outside my windowas bend in a cold breeze against a backdrop of a lead-grey sky. Filthy lumps of snow, remnants of snowbanks litter street corners. The day never really begins...it gets semi-bright around 8AM and dark again around 4PM, the intervening eight hours only a narrow window of gloom.

I don't suffer from S.A.D. - at least not in the clinical sense. I'm able to go about my business and get things done. I don't necessarily need to sleep 12 hours at a stretch and I don't brood about the darkness of my existence. Nevertheless, this weather does get you down and one can fully understand why some people are driven crazy by the near constant darkness and wetness. I dream of our September sojour in Southern California and my heart verily pines for the palm trees and mountains and margharitas on Santa Monica Pier.



It's at times like these when I think to myself: what the heck am I doing here, in this cold, inhospitable concrete jungle (as if the snow, sleet, rain, frost and gloom were not enough we now have rival gangs kill innocent bystanders in broad daylight)

Strangely enough, I hate Toronto summers even more than Toronto winters. In the winter, no matter how depressing the elements outside, the house is warm and cozy, a wonderfully human refuge from the cold. In the summers, there is no such respite. The streets are unbearably hot and sticky, the air unbreathable, the opressive humidity unavoidable. Air-conditioning helps a little bit, of course , but the city is overall even more insufferable than in the winters. There are only three beautiful months here: mid-May to mid-June, then
September and October



And they are so staggeringly beautiful that they almost make up for the other nine months of misery.