T. S. Eliot wrote “April is the cruelest month.”
I think he may have gotten it wrong. For my money January and February are far crueler.
We put on weight, we get sick and we get sad.
Psychology calls this Seasonal Affective Disorder and is characterized by low energy, hypersomnia, overeating, weight gain and craving for carbs. Sound familiar?
Doctor’s waiting rooms are filled to overflowing this time a year.
Patients suffer with a variety of winter time maladies including heart issues, gastro intestinal problems, weight gain, too much drinking, more anxiety and even depression.
I think the reason for so many of these winter maladies stems from being trapped inside our homes where we will watch TV and stuff our faces with junk food.
We are no longer moving about in the world.
At our most basic human are still animals and animals are meant to move about in nature.
My family has owned many thoroughbred horses and these beautiful creatures are meant to do one thing, run fast.
If you do not take a thoroughbred out of its stall to walk every day you are looking for trouble.
One of our finest horses, Dr. Carrington, was left in its stall for two days tied by its halter to a post.
He became so restless and frustrated that he literally ripped the halter off the post as if to say ‘run me or I will die.”
If it’s true that humans need to move about and not doing so causes general malaise let us test my theory.
Today I will do two things.
First I will walk to the Post Office in town and then I will travel take the same route by car and see how each experience feels.
One method allows me to use my body and the other to use my butt.
At 9:45 a.m. I embark by foot.
The air feels good to my face as I walk down the parking lot toward Hillside Avenue. A crow flies overhead and makes a sound.
The sky is blue and the temperature feels like about 45 degrees. It even feels a little like spring. Hope is in the air.
I cross Hillside and make my way down Nassau Blvd. As I stroll down the long block I begin to realize this little essay is not going to compete with “Street Haunting” by Virginia Woolf.
Her essay was about walking through London at 5 p.m. in early winter to purchase a pencil, was 6,000 words and touched upon all those odd and wonderful characters in downtown London.
At one point she described watching a middle aged woman with dwarfism trying on shoes with the grandest sense of pride.
Well there are no little people in sight and no Thames River either.
Williston Park offers up quiet streets with very few oddities to behold.
As I near the Post Office I notice one of the postal workers. This is Marty of the sweet smile and glorious hair.
She tells me she’s on lunch break (at 10 a.m. in the morning?) and explains that she starts work at 4 a.m. Wow.
I stroll back to my office.
The sun is warm here on the north side of Hillside. I slow down in front of the new Williston Park Florist and look over some orchids and make a promise to buy one next week.
I linger there for a bit and out come the owner of the flower shop. We chat for a while about journalism and its responsibility to tell both sides of any story. I wonder to myself if it’s true that most people have lost trust in journalism. Trump thinks we’re the evil empire but I think his perception is suspect.
I say my good bye and keep heading east. I arrive back at my building and pick up my mail.
I notice a letter waiting for me from Dr. Goldberg my urologist and feelings of dread envelopes me.
I quickly open the letter and see his note saying my PSA scores has dropped and I need not see him for another six months. Happiness is mine.
I look at my watch and see that my journey has taken me 45 minutes.
The next phase of my little experiment is to take my car to the post office and see how that goes. I manage to back out of my spot without hitting anything.
The parking lot is way too small for all these cars. I inch my way onto Hillside and go west. It takes me no more than three minutes to get to the post office.
My only interactions are with other cars and with traffic lights neither of which I like in any way.
I make a right to get back to my office and pull in and go back upstairs. The trip took only nine minutes.
The walking part of this experiment results in seeing a crow fly west, seeing the clear blue sky, feeling the sun on my face, talking to a pretty postal worker and then to a friendly store owner.
It took me three quarters of an hour to do all this.
In point of fact the walk presented me with multiple surprises all of which were pleasant. What occurred on my journey was that I felt both more human and more connected to my town.
The car ride on the other hand took only nine minutes and in no way did I feel either more human or more connected to the town.
In fact I think cars bring out the worst in humans and make us all angry and anxious.
Donna Haraway wrote a piece called “A Cyborg Manifesto” where she warned that humans were becoming more fused to machines and like cyborgs.
This is both true and not good news.
So if you are looking to beat those winter blues just put on your coat and go for a walk. Try it, you’ll like it.
It won’t cost you a penny and you just might feel better about things.
