It is 8:50 am on a cold Chicago Thursday. I am sitting in a Starbucks located at Jackson and Wabash, drinking a grande Espresso Truffle. I am feeling quite good. I am feeling good because I feel like I am starting to become comfortable in my own skin again. Not only my own skin, but in my intellectual positions, my abilities as an artist, musician, friend, husband and occupier of random spaces throughout the day. I know some people get depressed in the Winter, some people have something called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD. . . that's really fitting. . .) where they get REALLY depressed during the Winter months due to the constant grey skies and little sunlight. There seems to be a few popular methods of treatment for the disorder:
1. Move to California.
2. Take prescribed anti-depressants.
3. Buy ultra-violet lights to sit under throughout the day. These provide the vitamin D that the sun does and can stimulate the body to chemically correct itself.
Maybe you suffer from SAD, maybe not. My point is that I do not. Not only do I not suffer from SAD, my artistic/musical abilities become stronger. Why? Here's my theory. . . remember, it's just a theory. . .
Winter, grey skies, moody weather, these things tend to make people more introspective. Need proof of this? Listen to the radio in the Winter. You don't hear the snappy, carefree music nearly as often as you would in the Summer. This is because radio producers know that people tend towards depression/introspection in the Winter. More often you are hearing the singer/songwriter type of music. If you listen to rock radio, this doesn't apply. They play depressing music all year round. So, because people are more introspective, myself included, I tend to do even more self-analyzing and pondering. this helps fuel my artistic abilities by giving me new fodder to channel while creating or performing. This in turn boosts my own confidence in my abilities, putting me into a better mood. As long as this cycle continues I am in a generally positive mood. The art I create in the Winter seems better to me too. . . that's completely subjective though. . .
Now that I've spent the better part of my blog entry talking about SAD and how Winter doesn't depress me, let me steer my musings toward the Christmas holiday. I love Christmas. I, like most excitable children, used to lose sleep on Christmas-eve in sweaty anticipation of the following morning. I would also psyche myself out and live in dread that I wasn't going to get my big-ticket item. In my day (man, this'll date me. . .) it was a Nintendo Entertainment System (known by geeks as the NES.) I lusted over this thing like a sex addict for boobies (sorry about that analogy. . . a bit graphic. . . ?) Anyway, I remember the Christmas I first asked for it. Actually, "ask" is too gentle a word. Beg, cry, blather about, drool over, go into seizures for more accurately describe my obsession with the grey, square, electronic god. Christmas morning I woke up at something like 3:27 am and had to peek. The tree was surrounded by presents. At my age, I could have sworn that the presents were piled half-way up the trunk, I realize now that there were probably only a handful each. No matter, I looked around and saw stuff wrapped in brightly colored paper with ribbons and bows and all this stuff. Although i saw several large boxes os stuff, I had actually no idea what a NES box looked like, not to mention what the games looked like, so I went back to bed excited but nervous.
Fitfully, I resumed my slumber. At the prescribed time (7:30 am) I woke my parents and siblings and was the first to the tree. I had a small pile of what I though were books, a large box (that was made out to my brothers and I. . . ) and some Transformers. My parents encouraged us to open the large box together - and we did. In a magical display of. . . magic. . . a brand new NES emerged from its pitiful papery prison and glowed majestically. I think I even heard a choir of angels singing softly in the distance.
I nearly wet my pants. I spent the rest of the day in front of the TV playing Super Mario Bros. – even to the point of leaving the dinner table early so I could resume my game. As a side note, whenever Mario would jump, I even kicked my leg out as if I was going to jump with my little 8-bit friend. Anyone else do that? Maybe it was just me. . .
All that said, I love Christmas. As I've gotten older and wiser (ok, maybe just older. . .) I have had my exciting Christmas', but the gifts are not as important to me. through the years, I've seen that the gifts given are at the time terribly exciting, but over time, the shine wears off. They become used and forgotten. I am at a point in my life that I can buy any of the gifts that others give me myself, and I am finding that I am more interested in the practical and the useful over the flamboyant and the flashy. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for all my Christmas gifts and still look forward to the exchanging of presents, but I want to celebrate family, friends and the birth of Christ rather than obsess about toys and gadgets. These are the things that are lasting. These are the things that transcend time, trends, turmoil and too little sleep the night before. These are the things I value.
The past few years I've been way too busy to stop and reflect upon the holidays. I am not making the same mistake this year. I am taking the time to spend it giving to others not only items and gifts, but my time and my love.
Merry Christmas. May God bless you all.
