“Spring fever is not a definite diagnostic category,” says Michael Terman, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center. “But I would say it begins as a rapid and yet unpredictable fluctuating mood and energy state that contrasts with the relative low of the winter months that precede it.”
Matthew Keller, a postdoctoral fellow at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics in Richmond, studied 500 people in the U.S and Canada and discovered that the more time people spent outside on a sunny Spring day, the better their mood. Such good moods decreased during the hotter Summer months. Keller claims 72 degrees is the optimal temperature for bliss.
Of course, Spring brings other benefits as well. We feel…well…zippier. Our biological clock, alias the suprachiasmatic nucleus, sits in the hypothalamus of mammals and monitors light through a pathway to the retina and conveys information about day length to the pineal gland. This pea-sized gland tucked at the base of the cerebrum controls the secretion of melatonin, dubbed the sleep hormone because it is only released in the dark or in dim light. The duration of melatonin release changes with nocturnal length, which is longest during winter, thus it is thought that our increased energy in the spring months is somehow linked to the decreased duration of melatonin production due to shorter nights. Maybe, but personally we think it has more to do with the beginning of baseball season.
Shovel Me Out To The Ball Game
When we were kids, Spring meant the beginning of another glorious six months of baseball . The Red Sox schedule started in mid-April in those days, despite bone-chilling temperatures and occasional snow. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, our baseball season started even earlier. Sure we might have to shovel off the baselines and wear mittens under our gloves but sacrifices have to be made in the interests of the greater good. Baseball in the snow, of course, requires certain adjustments. You cannot use a regular spheroid because it will be destroyed in minutes, you must use an old coverless ball wrapped in black electrical tape. In addition to its much longer lifespan, the taped ball provides the additional advantage of being much easier to find in the snow. We once attempted a game with an actual new store-bought ball and the first kid up smacked it into deep right field, where the nearsighted Paul Brooks is still looking for it 73 years later.
One largely unrecognized advantage of snow baseball is the ease of sliding. In normal baseball, the kid heading for second base often begins his slide two-thirds of the way there and flames out five feet short of the base. In snow baseball, he slides right on by it. Of course, the bases can be a little difficult to find in the snow. Once, my pal Jackie Mercier rummaged through his mother’s closet and found some colorful crocheted pieces to put on top of the bases to aid in location. It worked out great for everyone but Jackie, who was sent to his room for a week and made to clean the house toilets with his toothbrush. To the chagrin of everyone, Jackie promptly switched to lacrosse.
Love Potion Number 9
“In the Spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”---Alfred Lord Tennyson
Got your sights set on that special someone? Wondering how to get him or her to take a ride on the YouTrain? The Flying Pie is here to rescue you from your inert state and hurl you headlong into the fire. Just pay attention, it’s not merely a matter of pushing a button.
According to clinical psychologist Bobbi Wegner, Psy.D., three components are necessary to achieve “passionate love”---attraction, lust and attachment. “Attraction is what it sounds like,” says Wegner, “a curiosity, interest or liking for someone. Lust is a strong sexual desire for someone, and attachment is an emotional bond between two people. As two people become emotionally closer, they seek that intimacy and feel more secure with the other person.” But we already knew all that, right? So what exactly drives those three components? You can’t force things like attraction and attachment.
The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships identifies 12 precursors to falling in love. Those are Reciprocal liking, Appearance, Personality, Similarity, Familiarity, Social influence, Filling needs, Arousal, Readiness, Specific clues, Isolation and Mysteriousness. What makes people fall in love according to therapist Ken Page LCSW, is “a mixture of true vulnerability, desire, sexuality and romance that creates a blend of safety, excitement, availability and shared love. That’s really what we’re all looking for.” But it’s tricky. According to Page, “The degree to which you hyper-focus on whether someone likes you is the degree to which you will self-abandon. It’s far more important to get clear on how this person actually makes you feel.”
With all that said, if your interest in someone is genuine and you want to encourage feelings of intimacy and closeness, here’s what the experts suggest, along with some cautionary advice from The Flying Pie.
1. Gradually deepen intimacy, which is done via shared vulnerability and time spent together, combined with letting the person know you like them. (But don’t slobber over your target mate. It’s unseemly and counterproductive.)
2. Use body language. Things like eye contact and sensitive touch cultivate feelings of closeness and amp up desire. (However, avoid crotch-grabbing at all costs.)
3. Get out of your comfort zone. Experiencing adventure together is a great way to deepen your connection with someone. Page posits that “doing things that are kind of on the edge is exciting and will help people bond. It illustrates that you are interesting and alluring, which is an important thing to cultivate.” (But definitely go light on the tandem bungee-jumping.)
4. Remain your own person. Even when you’re in love, it’s important to stay true to yourself, not ceding authority and all decision-making to the new partner. If someone is attracted to you it’s for the person you presently are. (So yes, it’s alright to wear your gorilla suit on Halloween, but that’s it.)
5. Understand the other person’s needs. We all want to be seen and understood by our partners and it’s equally important to see and understand them. Whether it’s bedroom gymnastics or how their attachment style manifests in relationships, try to get a handle on when and how your love interest feels best in the relationship and create space for those things. (But no screwing on the police department steps.)
6. Small acts of kindness go a long way. Some of us are kinder to others than we are to our own mates. Little things reflect love and caring. Bring a coffee by their place of work unexpectedly, top off the gas in their car, do some chore your partner detests doing. (Ten coffees a day is way too much.)
7. Be patient. True love takes time, so take it slow. Page advises that whether it’s sex, the amount of time spent together or how quickly you become intimate, there’s no need to rush. (If she keeps the bedroom lights off for more than two months, however, you might want to find a perkier partner.)
Got all that? Good. Don’t forget to invite us to the wedding. If things don’t work out, please don’t mail us any small, dead animals.
Here Comes The Sun
Spring! It’s happening in a neighborhood near you. When else can you get stuff like the following?
The U.S. Wildflower Rampage. Across the country, the hills are alive with the sounds of blooming, and so are the deserts. The Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve (above photo) in California’s Mojave Desert is home to perhaps the largest and most dependable crop of orange California poppies each Spring. You’ll be treated to similar glory in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, filled with multitudes of Mexican poppies and lupine in Springtime. Texas is your venue for acres crowded with the state flower, the bluebonnet. Thousands of visitors trek to Ennis yearly for their spectacular Bluebonnet Festival (this year’s occurs April 14-16). In late April, Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park puts on a great show with the arrival of more than 1500 wildflower varieties, making the place world headquarters for wildflower pilgrimages.
In early Spring, the Great Whale Migration takes place on the Pacific Coast of the U.S. as gray whales and their calves can be seen near the Big Sur coastline and just off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. These animals, which can grow up to 45 feet long and weigh as much as 33 tons, are heading from Mexico to their summer feeding grounds in the Arctic and Bering, Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
On the Spring equinox (right now), Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico hosts a spectacular display called the Casa Rinconada Celestial Alignment. The ancient great kiva (or round structure), which was probably used as a community gathering space, was built by the Chacoan people with two doors situated exactly on the north-south axis. The equinox sun stunningly rises in the center of the two doors.
For a brief period from late May to mid-June, Synchronous Fireflies light up in unison rather than emitting their usual intermittent twinkle in Great Smoky Mountains N.P. in North Carolina and Tennessee. The males flash in unison so that the females, who flash their response, can be sure they’re responding to their own kind rather than another riff-raff species, some of which are predatory.
Spring is a great time for wildlife viewing at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming since visitors have an excellent chance of spotting a range of new baby animals, including black bear cubs, bighorn lambs (May), elk, and bison calves, pronghorn antelope and even gray wolf cubs.
As warm temperatures arrive, Monarch Butterflies which flew south in the fall become more active and start to breed. This marks the start of their northern migration back to North America. On Nebraska’s Platte River, the annual Sandhill Crane Migration arrives---usually in very early March---along with millions of other migratory birds such as ducks and geese. This is one of the country’s greatest wildlife spectacles, with about 80% of the world’s sandhill cranes descending on the area, covering vast expanses of sky with millions of flapping wings.
If you’re up for a little travel, the Southern Hemisphere has its own aurora, the Aurora Australis. The best place to see it? As far south as you can go. Try Tasmania’s Mount Wellington. Like the Aurora Borealis, the southern lights are visible when electrically charged solar particles and atoms in Earth’s atmosphere collide with oxygen and nitrogen. Maybe that gadfly David Hammer will take you along in his sidecar.
Don’t worry, be happy. It’s Spring and you’re alive. And don’t forget to send us postcards, it’s the only chance we get to see The Firth of Forth.
That’s all, folks….
