The River Tao

We’ve now been in Arizona for a month, and I have a few thoughts on snowbirding. I think it’s critically important to note before anything else is written that we are very lucky and very privileged to have the financial resources to be able to do this. This is the first time since retiring we have chosen to snowbird, although we have talked about it over the past 8 years. This is the culmination of all those discussions and dreams; whether the reality matches well with the dream is still an open question.

Why snowbirding? In a nutshell, I suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). I began to notice it more after I turned 60. I live in the Lake Erie snowbelt region of western NY, about 50 mile SE of Buffalo. Winters are harsh there, but of course the people pride themselves on surviving the winter and the large snow totals. For me, it wasn’t so much the snow and the cold, as it was the lack of sunlight. Winters in WNY are notoriously gray. Here is a chart showing you how little sunlight there is in Dunkirk NY between Dec-Feb.

The entire month of December sees about 75 hours of sunshine (a little more than three days total), while January and February each see less than 100 hours per month.

This is pretty bad for a SAD sufferer. Lack of sunlight combined with the inability to leave the house either because of the depth of snow or the cold temperatures led to me prowling around the house, listless, bored, and with little to do. My symptoms became far more noticeable once I retired, since I no longer had a reason to leave the house. I found myself many times staring out a living room window, trying to forcefully will spring into existence.

I tried a number of the prescribed remedies. I have a 10,000 lux lamp that I can shine in my face for about 20 minutes each morning. I pumped up my intake of Vitamin D. I took morning walks when the conditions allow so as to get out and get what little light there might be. I even tried taking some part-time work, thinking that having somewhere to go and something to do would relieve the anxiety and tedium. And to an extent, all these remedies did offer a measure of help, but they also had their limitations. The lux lamp was heavy and awkward to manage; I can’t really say whether the extra Vitamin D helped or not; and while the jobs were OK, both of them involved winter driving, which is something else I dislike now. And they were jobs, which brought a certain amount of obligation. All in all, everything was only a partial cure.

On top of all this, snow removal was now becoming an issue. I bought a large self-propelled Craftsman snowblower to meet the challenge, but you would be surprised at how difficult the snow is to remove even with a powerful snowblower. This is especially true where the driveway meets the street, as the snowplows continually come down the street and re-block the driveway after you’ve cleared it. When that happens overnight, the snow freezes and becomes more like blocks of ice, which are very challenging for a snowblower to remove. Just before we left to come to AZ, a Thanksgiving snowstorm dropped 30" of snow across the region, and the effort I had to put in to keep the driveway clear so the car could get out was physically draining, and began to ruin my lower back. It was becoming clear to me that I needed a different winter strategy. Snowbirding seemed to be the answer.

It’s a fact of life that, as you grow older, you begin to do things in a way you sneered at when you were younger. People who used to tent camp find they now have a teardrop trailer, and then later on move to a travel trailer. I used to shovel the driveway in my 40s; now I have to use a huge snowblower, and it’s still a challenge. I never thought I’d be snowbirding, yet here I am. Originally we had considered snowbirding with our Class C RV (which is self-contained, another concession to age), finding some public land in AZ and planting the RV down for the winter. But AML’s mobility issues (knee and foot surgeries) have nixed that idea, and the notion of having an RV on public land as your main shelter - complete with the work of having to maintain its utilities - was no longer appealing. So an AirBnB became our best option. And here we are.

I say this with the greatest regret, knowing how old it makes me feel - I like it. Or rather, we like it. I am writing this while sitting outside in the shade where the temperature is a bright and sunny 71°. This morning the temperature was about 55° and sunny as I went for my walk. There has been one day where a light rain, sleet, and a tiny bit of snow fell, and that’s it. And as I mentioned, for me, it’s not about the temperature. It’s about the light. All the sunshine. Every day. I feel much less depressed, more energized, and more able to get out and do things without the weather being any kind of issue. It is very jarring to drive past a bank’s outdoor sign and see “Feb. 8, 2025/Temp 82°”. That takes time to register in the brain. At times, much of this seems unreal, but the reality is that my SAD is non-existent here. So let’s call this Part 1, and I’ll discuss a few more points in Part 2 another day. Time to get ready to watch the Superbowl later this afternoon. Fly, Eagles, Fly!