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When you are feeling blue, a bleak day outside can be a comfort, a kind of reassuring synchrony. But when the sun is shining and the sky is blue, good weather can seem to taunt or accuse: What’s wrong with you? The more perfect the weather, the worse you feel from the discordance between your spirit and the marvel of the day.
“Spring is a magnificence that is almost too much for my heart,” Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend after a series of bereavements. The resurgence of nature—pastel shades of buds on the trees, birdsong to greet the morning—seems to deny heartbreak such that those who are suffering are often left with a stark sense of removal. Beauty is indifferent to our burdens. A multicolored woodpecker happens to alight on a branch outside your window, and in return, you feel numb to the splendor of the sight. A walk outside in the sunlight can make things still worse. Seeing others reveling in the glory of such a day can cause you to plummet into the trap of comparisons. Couples walking hand in hand, children shrieking with delight as they reach great heights on swings, groups of friends laughing together—all of it vividly demarcates how distant you feel from joy and camaraderie. Everyone else seems to have a bounce in their step, while your feet are dragging concrete blocks.
“April is the cruelest month,” intoned T.S. Elliott in the first line of his poem, “The Wasteland.” There are so many ways you can condemn yourself when the weather is good and you are feeling bad. You stay in your pajamas, you keep the windows closed, you despise your thighs, and you don’t call your friends. You were feeling low before the rain stopped, but now you see yourself as an outlier, one of the unfortunate few who can’t abide what others are avidly celebrating out there.
Thus, one of the cruelest aspects of such days may be the verdict you render on yourself. The truth is, you can’t see what others are carrying in their hearts. On those sunlit days, many of the people you see out there actually had trouble getting out of bed and had to haul themselves outside. Being with their friends is reviving them. Fresh air and brisk movement combine with a change of scene to lift them out of the pit. You see their smiles and laughter, but not how hard it was for them to pick up the phone to make it happen.
Hiding from the light doesn’t make it less infuriating. You see it outlining the shades you draw against it. The contrast between your inner troubles and the reality out there continues to goad you. Yes, it’s all in your head. This is what we do. We have noisy minds that fill up with stresses, losses, and disappointments. If only we could be like the astronauts who have seen the glowing orb of Earth against the blackness of space, never again able to forget how their personal concerns fell silent, how minuscule and temporary they were in the face of such awe. This is life, moving in and out of tumultuous times, just like the weather itself. Breaking through to the immediacy of shimmering light moving through leaves in the wind is what we must do, even for a moment or two, maybe an afternoon. Beautiful days are a compensation not to be missed.
Copyright: Wendy Lustbader, 2023
