Here Comes The Sun

Sitting in the sunshine with the warmth of the rays on my skin, I feel an awakening. A renewal of spirit.  It’s incredible how the sun and outdoors lifts your spirits.

This winter has been hard. A snow storm nearly every week bringing double digit inches of snow to blanket the ground, trapping us in our fully appointed stiflingly warm cubes of urban living.

I love the snow, it’s still a novelty. We’d never  experienced snowfall like this. Before moving here the children had never seen it. Our snow was only on the ski fields, hours of driving away.

During the storms we love to watch it pile up and to see it immobilise an ever moving, never silent city is an incredible experience. I never tire of it.

But it’s also the winter that makes me miss home the most. Being trapped inside for months is depressing. I’ve never been so pale in my life. I’ve always had some sunkissed colour on my skin, my body charged with vitamin D. It never gets this cold in Australia, even on the coldest night in the dead of winter. The coldest areas experience temperature equivalent to a North Eastern November at worst, with the Northern Australian states enjoying  ‘Florida winters’.

This year I feel it. If I had my vitamin D levels tested, I’m sure they’d be depleted. Vitamin D is essential , every living thing needs the sun.

I need it like oxygen, for health and peace of mind. I can really see how seasonal depression  affects people.

I long to lay on the beach in the heat and sand. I want to be covered in sunshine and warmth . You won’t hear me complain about the heat this summer, I rarely do. I love it, my dry skin goes away, the stuffed nose and asthma disappears and the great outdoors, parks, hiking, bike riding and leisurely strolls bring me closer to nature and renew me.

But by the end of the season we’ll be ready for cooler days and cozy nights, bringing relief to the frayed tempers which spill out onto the streets on humid summer nights, of the stifling subways and the putrid stench of dog piss in the city.

By the time the leaves change, we’ll be excited for the first snow, excited to put our boots and hats and scarves back on because life is an ever changing season and as of today, the season of sun is well on the way.

I’ve got sunburned boobage from sitting outside today…That’s how I know 😉