Ramping Up
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Hello friends,
Spring is sproinging here in Portland, Oregon and this week we’ll shift from cool and sunny to hot (at least for a few days). While I don’t like the heat, I do appreciate the lengthening days.
I’ve always loved spring and summer, even when I lived in places where the changes were more subtle than they are here in Oregon. As a child in Los Angeles, I really loved the winter and the rain, as well. It was the only time the air felt clean, and as if I could breathe. Besides, rain and reading books go hand in hand, and I was an obsessive, voracious reader. Funny how some things don’t change at all.
At any rate, back to lengthening days… when I first moved to San Francisco from Southern California, the first thing I noticed was the quality of light. I could see why my photographer friends loved SF so much. I loved it too. I spent a couple of decades bathing in that light before moving across the bay to the Berkeley/Oakland border. I was happy in that light for close to a decade before heading north to Oregon.
This is the furthest north I’ve ever lived, and the difference in daylight is startling, even after seven years. Winter days are short. I’ve had to learn to adjust my ambitions and admit that I’m just not going to go out in the evenings during the darker months. I’ve learned that my writing slows down, too.
What does that mean now that we are here in mid-May? It means I’ve been ramping up and am now heading into full-on production mode. I’ve got friends who are the opposite. They are more productive during winter, and are starting to slow down.
How about you? What are things like where you live? Are you in the northern or southern hemisphere, or hanging out close to the equator?
Are you ramping up, holding steady, or winding down?
best wishes - Thorn
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Ramping Up
Yeah, now that I live in the PNW I am so much more affected by winter! I love the colder weather, but the shorter days mean I am even more in hibernate mode than I was down in CA. I use my light box religiously, which helps. I try to ride the energy boost of the longer days in Spring and Summer - but heat shuts me down almost as much as short days do. The older I get and the worse my health gets, the more I listen to and work with my body and energy levels. Fighting them all the time just means they kick my ass harder until I listen. :)
I've bee living in the Philippines for over fifteen years now, and I don't think I will ever fully embrace the seeming "perpetual summer" of this climate. The closest we get to anything cooler is the three months from about mid-December through to early-to-mid March when the temperatures actually say in the 70's. The rest of the time, it's mid-80's to mid-90's, and that's just too hot for me to even want to be productive. Just the thought of turning on the oven at this time is too much for me to handle!
I grew up in Rhode Island and spent most of my adult working life in Maine. I miss the changing seasons; I miss the farmers markets during the summer. I miss snow, though not the amounts I had to deal with while living in Maine! I miss the colors and smells of Autumn. It's strange, summer was never my favorite season of the year, yet here I am, living in what feels like endless summer. Oh well.....the trade-offs are still worth it.
My most productive time? Those three months of cooler weather. It takes all kinds.......right?