June 19, 2024

THE SEASONS:

Does the change of seasons affect your energy, outlook, or emotions?

More hours of daylight — reaching its peak at the solstice — June 20th (if you’re in the northern hemisphere).

At the North Pole on and around June 20th, the sun will be visible in the sky (assuming there are no clouds) the entire day!  

While the opposite is going on at the South Pole. On and around June 20th there is almost total darkness. Deep, dark winter!

Meanwhile at or near the equator there are NO seasons! Summer, winter, fall, spring — If you live on or near the equator you will not experience these changes from changing exposure to the sun. All year is like spring, fall, summer, or winter. There is no great or predictable difference between these times of year.

So unless you live underground your world is affected by where you live on earth. These changes in the time of year (or seasons) happen gradually. Day by day…

THE WEATHER:

In the Bay Area the day-to-day weather can be quite changeable. The day may start out cool. Then the clouds burn off and it’s warm or even hot! Or we may have a 2 day heat wave followed by cool, even wet weather, several days later. 

There could be a drought — and we find ourselves waiting and hoping for rain to green the grass and turn the hillsides into lushness instead of dry tinder. Or there could be an atmospheric river — And then we have too much rain, another kind of disaster. 

We wait and watch. Wear layers…

THE AGING PROCESS:

When just born, infancy — the changes are day by day. Childhood, month by month. 

Adolescence year by year. Adulthood decade by decade. Senescence (old age) — (more unpredictable). But perhaps one get’s some perspective on all this as you look backwards.   

How to navigate CHANGES of aging:       

Especially as caregivers!

If we only had a road map! No road map? 

There are road maps for childhood and adolescent development.

There are familiar patterns for season and weather changes.

(We are used to somewhat unpredictable weather in the bay area — thankfully, never terribly extreme).  

But aging — in one day “everything” can change. Recovery may not be part of the picture. And as unfathomable as it is —There is an end in sight. But just like we can’t understand the size of the universe (or even the size of our galaxy) —  How do we understand time? And how do we understand life and death from the point of view of our human experience? Aging highlights this challenging reality. And uniquely so for caregivers of aging loved ones.  

There is a great and important challenge to care for a frail aging loved one — and it challenges ALL our assumptions. Day by day.

Be gentle and kind to yourself. We are all fragile and beautiful.

– Susan Musicant, DPT

Injury Prevention Coordinator at DayBreak

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