Blue mood under blue skies

The blue mood has lingered even under the blue skies of beautiful Maine. I’ve read that with PTSD, you continue to have all the resilience of a camel’s back: You can manage your daily load, but one additional straw sends you sagging into sadness.

But sadness didn’t prevent me from enjoying huge swaths of Maine. There’s something about the hardiness and fragility of Maine—resilience!—that makes every vista poignant: the abundance of green that pours out of the ground in the brief summer. But perhaps I’ve got it wrong thinking the summer is the living season and winter the dead. I asked a yoga teacher how she got herself through the long winter, and she said the cold months were the best, and she actually spent more time outside in winter than in summer. In Maine, she said, people throw vanity to the winds, pile on truly serviceable winter wear and get to know the snow.