Winter Gloom

So here we are, just a few days from the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, and I haven't seen the sun in weeks. Literally. We've been locked into this weather pattern where there is constant, thick cloud cover. This isn't unusual for this time of year here in Tennessee, and I don't mean to make it sound like I'm complaining.

In fact, we've had decent rainfall lately, and are now ahead of our average for annual precipitation in 2008. This is good, because we've had a couple of very dry years. 2007 was considered a drought year.

I do think there is more than just a psychological effect from continuous lack of sunlight. Our bodies get Vitamin D from sunlight, so perhaps a lack of it has other physiological effects. My sleep patterns are a little off. I feel a couple of degrees off kilter. It's hard to explain.

The last couple of days it has been very cold, and drizzly, and a thick fog has been lingering just above the rooftops. I swear it looks like London in 1891 -- the perfect backdrop for a murder mystery.

But I accept this. It's part of the amazing cycle of life in our world. There was rebirth and new hope in the spring, an almost endless supply of hot sunny days in the summer, and a crisp beautiful change in the fall. Now it's time for things to lie dormant or die. It seems a bit dreary now, and sometimes seems like it lasts a little longer than we'd like. But the truth is that it stays this way just the right amount of time. It will make the warmth and rebirth of springtime that much sweeter when it finally comes.