Daylight lost, anxiety gained before holidays

With apologies to T.S. Eliot, the weeks between the end of daylightsaving time and Thanksgiving are the cruelest weeks, breeding darkness at 5 p.m., mixing pumpkin spice with the coming winter chill, stirring pre-holiday anxiety without holiday party relief.

Again, deep apologies Tom, but welcome to the seasonal wasteland.

September has always been a month of possibilities for me: My childhood back-to-school excitement turned to exhilaration about the start of the fall arts and social seasons as an adult, and I saw each Labor Day as a new beginning. October is the queer holy month, given the careful planning of Halloween parties and costumes, as well as the embrace of all things witchy and Stevie Nicks.

Then along comes the first week of November: Guy Fawkes Day on the 5th is usually the last gasp of autumn warmth in San Francisco, and then it’s downhill for my mood until it’s socially acceptable to start listening to “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on Black Friday.

This year, these November weeks feel even more cruel after 20 months of COVID protocols in the U.S. and a societal malaise resulting from too much toxicity in the culture. Feelings of gloom this time of year are not new for many of us (seasonal affective disorder has been a diagnosis for 37 years), but in 2021, the gloom is supercharged with all the anxiety we’ve lived with since March 2020. I was still adjusting to some semblance of life as I once knew it in October when wham — the clocks fell back, the weather turned, and I abandoned any desire I had to go out and be social in favor of curling up next to a heating vent.

Since daylight-saving time ended, I’ve noticed more memes than usual on social media decrying the lack of sunlight and excess of ennui. I’m not sure misery loves company, but there is some solidarity in knowing other people are feeling this combination of seasonal blahs and COVID fatigue. That’s been one of the surprising upsides to the pandemic: a sense of community around taking precautions for the collective good and understanding that a lot of us are battling isolation and stress.

So this year, let’s take that lesson and apply it to these cruelest weeks.

First, let’s count the days until Thanksgiving, when I annually turn the holiday into a festival of decorative gourd centerpieces and artfully arranged leaves. After that, I barely notice how dark it is outside when I’m inside a store holiday-shopping. The same goes for being inside at a holiday party, something I just realized I’ve been waiting two years for. Then we’ll count the days until winter solstice, happening this year on Dec. 21. Once we reach that shortest day, we’ll know that there’s more daylight at the end of the tunnel.

For all their cruelty, this year more than ever, these weeks can also be a time of anticipation. I’m anticipating the return of traditions, of togetherness and, eventually, the return of a few extra hours of what passes as sunlight in San Francisco.

In 2021, the gloom is supercharged with all the anxiety we’ve lived with since March 2020.