photo courtesy Amazon.com
Last evening, I listened with interest to an interview with the author Cynthia Barnett about her new book Rain, on On Point on NPR. The interview wound around a variety of issues concerning rain as a phenomenon to be considered on practical as well as more oblique points. I became more intrigued as the conversation turned to Emily Dickinson, the prolific poet, who, Ms. Barnett claims was much more productive when the sun was shining but produced her more acclaimed works when the skies were dreary and precipitation was imminent or occurring. She also discussed Kurt Cobain in this regard, the climate of the Seattle area and Manchester, England.
I had not been previously aware that Emily Dickinson had suffered from what we now refer to as Seasonal Affective Disorder. While I am certain this term was not used during her lifetime, it was used by Tom Ashbrook during the discussion as in applying to Ms. Dickinson.
As a sufferer from Seasonal Affective Disorder myself, I was more than mildly intrigued that Emily Dickinson’s work was acknowledged as being greatly influenced by weather conditions. I found the parallels formidable and I will pursue the topic in my studies. I can readily identify with productivity going up on sunny days and falling on overcast ones and yes, do support the idea that deeper connections, perhaps more serious subject matter and more profundity do stir during those dreary times.
Where I believe Ms. Barnett, a self-proclaimed lover of rain, went off the track was to suggest that the moods which affected the likes of Ms. Dickinson and Kurt Cobain, their work and the quality of their lives, were not only influenced by weather conditions but also by the relatively unappealing, “grey” physical surroundings, i.e. as in the likes of Washington State and Manchester, England. She referred, I believe to the color of ships in the harbor and otherwise depressing surroundings as an example to support her point. This is where I believe she missed the boat. I would guess that not only is Ms. Barrett’s brain not wired anywhere near the same as mine, but that wandering into speculating about someone’s brain chemistry is unwise, unless perhaps it is her own. If she had been speaking as an authority on Seasonal Affective Disorder, that would have been very different. Considering that she actually finds pleasure in the atmospheric conditions surrounding rain, she could be expected to feel differently about the propensity for rainy weather to affect someone in a substantively negative way and perhaps look for other causes for this phenomenon. However, anyone whose fate was such as Kurt Cobain’s is a very sensitive and serious subject and should not be trivialized in any way, shape or form, nor speculated upon in a manner such as this. This, of course, is my own opinion.
Further, she espoused the benefits of rain to generate the beautiful and colorful landscape that we all enjoy. Of course! Here she misses the boat again and in the process perhaps infers that the rainy-weather-haters are misguided. We all accept that we need rain to have life on earth. The point is what happens to people during the atmospheric condition changes. Aren’t these two separate points?
Having long been trying to understand the affect of weather changes on my own quality of life, I have sought carefully to key into the cause, affect, and worked to offset the downside affects on my life. Long poo-pooed as a minor irritant, something easily overcome or a figment of one’s own imagination, weather conditions have influenced my mood, energy level, outlook and productivity profoundly. I can tell you that it doesn’t matter whether I am in Santa Barbara, California, London, Orleans, MA, Palm Beach or home in suburban New Jersey, the same is true – give me high pressure in any of these locales and you shall see a different person than the one you see when their is “coastal cover”, the damp, fog, showers, or gathering hurricanes. What you see in terms of manmade landscape out your window doesn’t matter – it is the atmospheric conditions outside your window and those coming and going that will influence or color my day.
I have often joked that the weather channel might wish to hire me, as my brain is a great predictor of changing weather. Yesterday, was a perfect example. I sat in the sun for about an hour in the morning (medicine). Later, even while the sun continued to shine and I walked the dog, my outlook changed as I developed a headache. Within a couple of hours, the skies outside my door changed to this:
The air changed, the winds picked up and the sky turned mean. This lasted for about 3 hours and by 7pm, the sky changed back to:
this photo was taken while the interview was still on
The atmospheric conditions had done a virtual 360 in less than 12 hours. I could have told you the whole story with my eyes closed.
The point of my post today is that this discussion should have better clarified the points of speculation vs authority or purported science – the interview crossed back and forth repeatedly and the lines here were not clear. This being a very important subject to me, I guess I took some offense to this part of the discussion on a show being called, On Point.
And, for anyone not having noticed, today is a lovely day! 🙂 Most likely, I’ll be writing and snapping about happy thoughts and images, no wallowing about today, unless the weatherman’s got something “icky” in store for us again.
