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I've told this story before but it's worth telling again, because we reach these depths every year. Here in the pit of winter, the novelty of the new year is long gone and spring is still a rumor. Day after gray day, we're either underdressed or overdressed because, inexplicably, 6 degrees can mean something wildly different on Thursday than it did on Tuesday.
We wear boots as heavy as bricks and coats that smell of old sweat because, inexplicably, it is possible to sweat even when you're freezing. Snow shovels strain our backs, icy sidewalks menace our bones and the routine act of taking out the garbage becomes a herculean feat.
We can find things to love, of course. Every season has its charms. But the charms of this one are as fleeting as snowflakes. We cheer the sun, then the clouds come. We admire that fresh snow, but it's soon a pile of snirt. We tell ourselves that staying indoors is cozy, and it is, until it makes us crazy.
In other words, it can be a difficult season for many people, even when we're not slogging through a pandemic.
It was difficult for me the year I went to see Dr. Roguska, as she was known, about my malaise. Until her retirement a few years ago, she was my internist, a small, bright-eyed, white-haired woman, trained in Poland before she came to Chicago, the kind of old-fashioned physician who started every visit by sitting you down at her desk to chat. She seemed to believe that to treat you, she needed to get to know you.
That day, I explained to her that I'd been inexplicably blue. I was trying to avoid the word "depressed." Glum, I said. Down. Anxious. Cranky. OK, maybe depressed. Did I need a therapist? I wondered. Medication?
She listened, nodded, pondered. Then, in her crisp, cheery Polish accent, she offered her diagnosis.
"It's February," she said. "It's winter."
And that was all the medicine I needed. The disease had been named — February! — and the naming of it was the beginning of the cure. I went back into the cold, gray day with a lighter heart, and every year since, I've conjured those comforting words as medicine.
Are you anxious, lethargic, mad at half of everybody? It's February.
February 2021 comes with added challenges. We've living through the havoc of a pandemic and the bitterness of a former president's impeachment trial. In Chicago, we're experiencing one of the coldest winters since 1875, and more snow than normal.
And that's why, in the spirit of Dr. Roguska, I made a list the other day of February's bright spots. Here's mine. I encourage you to make your own.
One: The days are getting longer. Every day, we add more than two minutes of sunlight. We got 10 hours of daylight daily when the month started. We'll have more than 11 when it ends.
Two: The Art Institute of Chicago, along with other museums, just reopened. "Something about that feels so poignant to me," said a friend, "and I can't quite put my finger on it. It's bitterly cold out, we're in the middle of a pandemic, our nation is in turmoil — but then you can still go inside a place like that and feel grounded by the enduring traditions of our civilization."
Three: The indoor gardens of the Garfield Park Conservatory on Chicago's West Side are reopening at the end of February. Merely looking at the photos float past on social media — luxurious, giant green leaves, huge yellow water lilies — creates a springtime for the mind.
Four: Chicago's public schoolteachers finally struck a deal that will get many kids back in classrooms soon.
Five: Though the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been chaotic and frustrating, people are steadily being vaccinated.
Six: Watching squirrels in the snow is surprisingly good entertainment.
It's February. Dr. Roguska's wisdom — understanding that our moods often cycle along with the seasons — won't fix everything that ails everybody, especially not this winter. But it can help. The light is coming back, in its own time, and we'll appreciate it all the more because it's been gone.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 02/09/21: Everybody hates snirt. And if you don't know what that is, read on
• 02/03/21: Trying to get a COVID vaccine is like playing roulette
• 12/30/20: The year of the virus, the year of the mask. Be gone, 2020, that's all that we ask
• 12/28/20: As the light returns, it's time to make a list of what we've missed, and appreciated, in this dark year
• 11/23/20: How to enjoy Thanksgiving alone. How to help someone who's alone enjoy it
• 10/23/20: Voting in Kamala's shoes --- the power of a candidate's sneakers
• 09/30/20: Tis the (election) season. Don't despair, take deep breaths --- and did I mention don't despair?
• 09/15/20: Winter's coming. The secret doctors won't tell you about surviving it in a pandemic
• 09/04/20: It's September. Already. Again. This year many wish we could skip ahead as an election and cabin fever loom
• 08/19/20: Is 2020 the worst year ever?
• 08/14/20: Mailmen brave the storm, and not just the political one
• 05/05/20: Coronachondria, coronacravings and pandemania: A few words to describe our strange new times
• 04/14/20: If you get the coronavirus, would you, should you, make it public?
• 04/02/20: The pandemic, a professor and a duck named Honey: A story of life in a time of death
• 03/23/20: It's OK not to feel OK right now. But here's how to feel better
• 03/20/20: Befuddled and grieving: As nursing homes restrict visitors in the COVID-19 crisis, one woman fears she'll never see her mother again
• 02/04/20: Where do we find relief in a relentlessly jangling world?
• 12/13/19: Reject the comparisons. Embrace the complication. Be the brightness you want to see. Tips for happier holidays
• 01/21/19: Farewell, Mary Oliver, a poet whose name you may not know, but whose words you most certainly do
• 09/06/18: A breeze of hope blows in the Windy City
• 08/29/18: Another summer. Again, a gift
• 08/17/18: In search of family in a small-town graveyard
• 08/09/18: Courage, kindness two years after 12-year-old blackboy was shot in Chicago
• 07/26/18: An everyday encounter made brighter by a good question: 'Do you have a story for me?'
• 06/19/18: A Big Sister's Guide to Life: Don't chase men and other practical advice
• 06/12/18: For 13 years, 2 friends wrote letters daily. It was a love affair of poetry, separated only by death.
• 06/01/18: What would we do without our brothers?
• 05/17/18: Forget a fiddler. City woman awakens to find a goose on her roof --- and laws about removing it and her eggs
• 05/10/18: A high school senior with college dreams was paralyzed by gunfire. Two years later, he's still pushing forward
• 04/05/18: Remembering the youngest history makers
• 04/03/18: The Parable of the (Expletive Deleted) Comfort Dog
• 02/15/18: Fees, fines, loans, scams: How the poor get poorer
• 02/01/18: When Paul Simon, Daniel Day-Lewis and Elton John say 'farewell' to work they love, should we too?
• 01/25/18: At Oscars time, let's snub the snubbing
• 12/28/17: The real 2017 word of the year
• 12/20/17: The laundry-folding robots are coming
• 12/13/17: How not to waste the last days of 2017