I have the opposite of that winter depression they describe--seasonal affective disorder, I believe--the phenomenon by which the grayness of the air lends its color to the spirit. Not that sunshine weighs me down; it is that I feel safer under clouds. I feel encased, not in the sense of being imprisoned, but in the sense of being blanketed, cradled. Perhaps it is the absence of a celestial vastness by which to be oppressed. There is no visible threat of falling heavenly bodies, no scorching light-heat so spontaneously able to strike that it only had to leave home eight minutes ago.

For the same reasons I like my hair long and my collars up: I've got a world to deal with in there.