The sea is like a non-living character in my life — a constant yet ever-changing presence, depending on the season. But it wasn’t until I returned to the seaside, having lived away for some years, that I truly appreciated how important it is to me.

Even for someone especially sensitive to the dwindling hours of sunlight as we in the northern hemisphere head into Autumn, there’s one thing that helps offset the effects of an impending light-deprived funk: it’s all that glorious color!

For me, Spring can never come soon enough.

Even for those without children, there is something in the air, along with the changing season and the holiday photos shut away in the album.

I certainly consider lethargy, melancholy and intense desires to sleep and to pile on the carbs to be natural parts of the season. I wonder if our ancestors didn’t do exactly that, sleep and eat their way through the winter months. We now have to keep going, keep working, studying, at a constant pace, as if our deep biological rhythms had adjusted to keep up with the society we now live in. Unfortunately, they haven’t.

It feels different from the September Blues. They were mainly in my head. I knew that a change was coming, and I was trying to keep up with the preparations, get ahead of it, take control of it. This feels more difficult, my body has to actually move through the changes, the cold, the viruses, the fires, the new rhythms and the ever increasing darkness. At the same time it feels less speedy and mind-driven, and more authentic. In fact it is only the other side of the coin…

September Blues — it’s the end of the holidays. Fear of change sets in, fear of losing ourselves once more in the everyday routine. What can we do about it?