The Poosey Digest... by Freida Marie Crump
Cabin fever
Greetings from Poosey.
When the crews of Canadian and American whaling ships were locked into the Artic ice next to each other during the winters of 1903-04 (yes, for two years), the captains of the rival ships called a truce in their usual hostilities and scheduled a foot race.
They had sufficient food to sustain them on their frozen ships, but the skippers were faced with a problem hairier than the polar bears and ice... cabin fever. Too many days and months cooped up in the wintertime was about to drive the whaling crews crazy, so the two captains met one day, schedule foot races between the two crews, then started a series of lectures aboard the ships. They saved the day and lived to whale again.
When it gets bad enough we call it Seasonally Affected Disorder, or SAD. The Health Department of Alaska says it affects as much as 20% of the state's population during the months where not even the sun can be located.
If there was ever a winter where mild irritation has turned to all-out fever, it must be the season we're slowly enduring in the Midwest this winter.
The effects of cabin fever are a bit harder to detect in the Crump household. The telltale signs are listed as feeling depressed or sad, lethargy, difficulty concentrating, carbohydrate or sugar cravings, sleep disturbance, difficulty waking, reduced productivity and irritability. Tell you the truth, my husband Herb is a walking textbook of those symptoms 12 months a year. I can't think of a day when the man wasn't irritable, lethargic (look it up in the dictionary and you'll see his picture), hard to wake up, and impossible to keep on a single train of thought. If the medical researchers who study this malady closely would meet Herb they could add "stubborn" to the list of symptoms.
The experts list a whole passel of ways to alleviate the winter blues including Vitamin C, "sun machines," Prozac, and hypnotism. In Herb's case I've always favored a strong boot in the direction I'd like him to go.
But most experts say that the quickest and cheapest ways to fight the blahs of cabin fever are simply making yourself get out and around people, then keep your diet fruit and veggie-filled. Sounds wiser than Prozac and running races with the opposing whalers across the ice fields.
I have a friend who every mid-winter plans a beach party in her home. She invites a hatful of good friends, they put on their swimsuits, then dash rather quickly (in a pre-heated car) to her house for an evening of summertime music, iced tea, and hamburgers prepared on a snow-covered grill. She says she turns the furnace up high enough to simulate a summer day and the only real problem came last winter when a couple of her friends were stopped for speeding on their way to her party. The state policeman gave them a warning, but the swimsuits were harder to explain.
Roberta Blevins lives just down the street from me. She just turned 80 and her age is matched only by her speed. She's up every morning by five, works out on her treadmill, lifts a few weights, and then spends the rest of the day in a whirlwind, planned or otherwise. The woman not only never stops, she seldom touches the ground. Once the aspect of winter rears its hoary head over the town Roberta simply kicks it up notch. Roberta doesn't believe in retreating to Florida or Texas to escape the doldrums of a Midwest winter, she simply keeps her feet so warm with activity that she tends to melt whatever snow's on the ground this week.
"You don't move it, you'll lose it," she tells me, and I believe her.
She never misses a gallery opening, a concert, play, or funeral visitation. She and I were once driving into town to a meeting and we saw a postman walking his beat. She stopped the car. "Look at that, Freida. You see how he organizes his letters between houses? I wonder how many steps he takes in a day." I was afraid she was going to make me count them. Simple curiosity about the world was keeping her body alive and her winter warm.
Last week I asked her down for coffee. She politely told me, "I'd love to, Freida. Why don't you call me again in the spring when I'm not quite so busy." You go, girl!
So I look at Herb asleep on the couch this morning, having risen only long enough to eat breakfast and go to sleep again, and I wonder which of these methods might finally put enough fire in the old poop's tail to get him going. He doesn't own a swimsuit, can't run a footrace on the tundra, and in fact he's afraid of whales. I'm considering a harpoon.
You ever ‘round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you'll enjoy the trip.
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