June Gloom

For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon, “June Gloom” refers to the fog which lingers off the coast of Northern California during the summer. Everywhere else in North America is sunny and bright, but we are blessed with prolonged cool weather and overcast skies all month.

San Francisco Fog from PhotoEverywhere.com

“It is June.  I am tired of being brave.”
~ Anne Sexton, The Truth the Dead Know

This quote popped up on my Tumblr* feed today, shortly after one of the women in my writing group posted about how she felt depressed, rather than excited, about the start of summer: “I  am inexplicably sad, tired and empty, and am not looking forward to summer at all”. Most of the other women in the group chimed in with similar statements.

Aside from the overcast and chilly weather (which I prefer to bright and sunny—having off-season Seasonal Affective Disorder means that I’m happy when it’s cold and dark, and miserable when it’s warm and bright), what is the cause of the emotional state of June Gloom? Why do so many of us feel it?

The state of the world, for starters. If you even glance at the news in any medium, you know what I’m talking about. But even in years when the situation is not so dire, the June slump hits, hard.

On a personal level, my awareness that the year will soon be half over is a tremendous pressure. The days are flying by, and yet my plan for the year is not half-accomplished. According to my to-do list, it’s early April. That kind of dissonance is hard to reconcile, and the resulting stress is interfering with pretty much everything. The calendar says, “slow down and enjoy the day”, and my brain says, “But I must DO ALL THE THINGS!”

Sarah Ban Breathnach touches on this in her book of meditatations, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.  In the meditation for August 31, she speaks of the struggle of uncreative periods (days, weeks, months): “Often, the derailment of too many dreams can bring on a drought, but whenever there’s a dry period, there’s still plenty of Light. We’re just blinded by dark dust storms. Arid despair can often result from nurturance deprivation: not eating well, not sleeping enough, working too hard and too long without anything to look forward to.” Sound familiar?

The cultural expectations of summer encourage us to set a more relaxed pace, but our daily lives continue as usual, and we think there is no way for us to keep our lives together and also enjoy the summer. If we take a second look at things, perhaps there is a way to build some down time, some relaxation, some not-billable-but-just-as-valuable time into the day. Even just fifteen minutes can make a real difference on a daily basis.

Today, give yourself the gift of fifteen minutes to gaze out the window, or perhaps sit under a tree (without your mobile phone) or on a park bench, and just watch the day unfold. Then again tomorrow, and the day after. See if, after a week, the June Gloom hasn’t lifted, just a bit.

*Note: If you are not on Tumblr, there is no need to fret. This site is my primary blog, and I cross-post to Tumblr to reach the people who (like many Facebook users) never leave the bounds of their chosen social network.