Sun, Sun, Sun

Let’s face it. April is just a teaser for spring. What do you long for in the depths of cold, dark winter? Sunlight, of course! So do we all. But even here in mid-April I feel teased and tricked by the sun as it ducks and hides behind dreary clouds and covers its warmth in a blanket of drear. Other April days may well be ablaze at sunrise as every icy dew drop catches a spark of sunlight and magnifies it in orange-red...but the truth is that days are still feeling short and it just ain't summer yet. So we are sun-starved.

In sitting here frustrated at not having something to write that anyone else would care about, I recognized something. While my inspiration was sapped by the dreary morning, by the lack of sunlight bursting forth, I am nonetheless quite warm, comfortable and content. The source of my comfort is two-fold: my morning spiritual studies and my $200 Alaska Northern Lights lightbox. I won't go into the former as this blog isn't my spiritual platform. Yet. But I would like to talk about my beloved Lightbox.

I'm a huge fan of sunlight. No, that won't do: I'm an outright sunlight junkie. I can't get enough of the sun. In my cubicle, a vast distance from any window, I can sense when a cloud moves over the sun. Honest. I am one of the masses who become downright depressed when the wintry days of drear pile up, one after another, in a meaningless, undefined shapeless mound of, what's the word? BLAH. Thoughts won't take shape, sentences don't congeal, feelings are muted- particularly happiness. There is a "vacancy" sign parked in the space that my sense of life's meaningfulness ordinarily occupies. But when that beautiful moment comes and sunlight streams sharp and bright-hot through the dreary gray- I'm suddenly alive- spiritually, cognitively, emotionally. Can you relate in some way? When the real thing hides, enter The Lightbox.

This miracle Lightbox is bursting with happy energy from special bulbs whose light mimics the sun's rays, sans the harmful ones. Mine is a 26"x18"x4" rectangular idol sitting directly before me on my desktop, just beyond my Mac Book. I plant myself before it daily in ritualistic fashion, my eyes lifted to it in awe, to re-energize my life force, my feelings of joy, my sense of purpose. Really- no joke. I've never experienced anything like it (well, outside spiritual pursuits) and wouldn't give it up for anything. And yes, I can feel it working on me right now.

I won't try to relate to you the sense of desperation and dread that blanketed me the moment I dropped my first Lightbox and a flick of the switch confirmed that The Light had left me. For those of us with Seasonal Affective Disorder, the fix of sunlight is worth any price, so I sprung for another as fast as my fingers could pound out the correct combination of credit card numbers on my keyboard. In a few days, my wonderful friends at Alaskan Northern Lights had shipped me my new idol. My face reflects its glory every morning and sometimes late evenings as well. My family, friends and neighbors see that The Light has come, that I am changed. And my inner experience? Peace, man. You'll just have to try it for yourself and see.

Of course, the sun is on its way, today or tomorrow, to lavishly spread its hot fingers over us, warming us inside and out, healing the pangs of winter blues. I can't wait. No other brightness can compare; not the glorious flash of lightning in the pitch-black of a furious spring storm, not the flash of a camera at a loving family Easter gathering; not even the sweet flickering flame of a candle lit by lovers. No, I wait for the real thing. But I wait in front of a Lightbox. Amen, and Amen. Share