Weathering the Winter Blues
I’ve noticed that for the past month or so, my Twitter updates have been predominantly weather-focused. There have been some exciting things going on at work, but I guess I assume most people don’t really care about the goings-on of our office. If you are interested: The summary is that our manager is moving to Rio to start our new office; his replacement is a woman from the Beijing office whose name often appears alongside phrases like “skyrocketing career;” our team won a company-wide “Bronze Award;” budget limitations are stopping us from having a traditional Julebord (Christmas party) this year.
Since we haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary, my outward-facing life now seems to revolve around the weather. But that’s usually to be expected in Norway in November.
November is our mørketid. Oslo doesn’t actually experience polar night, but mørketid literally translates to “dark time,” and November is our darkest and dreariest month. By the end of November Oslo’s days will be only 6½ hours long. Sunrise will be around 8:50 am, and sunset will be at an unbelievably early 3:22 pm!
Most people here dread November. I remember facing a bout of seasonal depression last November, and when we chose a reading selection for our November book club meeting, we collectively agreed to read something “happy.”
You might wonder why November is such a big deal. After all, we still have a month of shortening days before we reach the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year), which means we’re not even halfway through our season of absurdly short days. The problem with November is that there’s no snow. It tends to hover above freezing, and it rains a lot. This means that even when the sun is technically up, we still can’t see it. And since our precipitation is unfrozen, we have dark, wet streets instead of the bright reflective white dusting of snow that brightens the city later in the winter.
However, despite the meteorological shortcomings of the season, I feel surprisingly okay. Perhaps it’s that the temperatures this year have been slightly warmer than last year. Aside from a week earlier in the month that hovered around freezing (and came with an early but short-lived snow flurry), our days have been much milder with temperatures up in the 40°s (F).
Or maybe I’m just acclimating. According to medical research, Icelanders seem to be unique in their overall resistance to Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I imagine the rest of Scandinavia has at least learned to cope with it over the years. Perhaps I’m so prepared for a gloomy November that it’s turning out to not be so bad.
Or maybe I’m just so busy with work (see the above synopsis) that I just don’t have time for S.A.D.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:14 am
Meg, I’ve been super surprised, too, that I felt fairly cheerful during most of November. Last winter was a bad one for me… I fell into a depression before Thanksgiving and it just kept getting worse until I scampered off to California in February to recover. I think you’re right about the warmer temps helping to keep SAD at bay this year. And now we have Christmas to look forward (gotta love the lights!), so there’s December sorted. I am planning another trip to Cali in Feb., just to be safe.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:04 am
ha ))
December 5th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I feel you with the weather here in Oslo. lol