Home

It's the grayness that gets to me. I look out the front window and everything I see is the same dull color. The world is a charcoal painting in shades of gray.

I go to the back door and look out -- again the same monotony. The trunks and branches of our trees are gray, as are the shrubs, the wood of our deck and fence, the soil, the houses, sky -- everything above and below, all gray.

Winter doldrums. It has been several days since we have seen the sun. On the occasional sunny day, the world lights up briefly; then, with the sun's disappearance, retreats into the gloom. And with it our spirits. No cheerfulness, fewer smiles, less energy, less enthusiasm, less optimism, little patience. As scientific research has shown, the absence of light and color has detrimental effects on people.

Northern "snowbirds" migrate south to Florida for the winter. Others are not so fortunate. Forced by the necessities of jobs and childrearing to endure the grayness of northern winters, how can they bear the bleakness when they crave the sun and the light with no chance of winter in the Caribbean?

I, too, crave the sun and am aware I crave my own poison. Twice the victim of skin cancer, I still yearn for the bright colors of summer flowers and the beauty of sunsets, with full knowledge of the role the sun has played in my afflictions. The sunny days of childhood on Coney Island Beach, adult vacations in Florida, Arizona, and Cape Cod, and summer afternoons in shorts on my deck at home have taken their toll of my freckled skin.

"Fry Now, Pay Later" says the American Cancer Society in warning sun worshipers like myself. No longer may I enjoy the sun in near-nudity. But covered by long pants, long-sleeved shirt, broad-brimmed hat and sunscreen, I still enjoy the golden days of summer. How can I find substitutes now for the pleasure of those days?

One day, as I prepare salad for dinner, I become aware of some new items in my vegetable selections. The usual quick lettuce, tomato, cucumber salad has acquired purple cabbage strips, orange carrot curls, crimson and white radish slices, and yellow pepper chunks. The ordinary baked potato or rice is now often supplanted by green-rinded, orange-centered acorn squash, two-tone green zucchini, or orange sweet potato.

A few days later, my shopping trip does not yield the gifts I intended to purchase. Instead, I return with an armload of artificial flowers in shades of blue, lavender, and pink. My need for a warm winter sweater does not result in the selection of a black, brown or gray one. Instead, I choose a pale tweed sweater of ecru yarn flecked with turquoise, yellow, pink, and lavender -- another refusal to give in to the winter spirit.

For the long indoor hours, I select a new CD -- the angelic voice of Kiri Te Kanawa singing the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss. The music is so beautiful that when I first heard it on the radio, the commentator could not find words to follow his playing of the recording. I have also chosen a new needlepoint -- the subject, a sailboat adrift in a glittering sea just before dusk -- the yarns, mostly sunny, bright, pearlized pastels.

The little room that I call "my office" has just been redecorated. I have selected pale ivory walls, ivory shades with chocolate trim, and soft, billowing curtains of apricot voile. For the walls, I have chosen a Seurat pointillist garden poster and an enlargement of a colorful landscape photo taken from an observation point on the Taconic State Parkway in late summer.

All these choices were made with no conscious thought but, in retrospect, I detect a pattern here -- an attempt to bring outdoor color to my indoor winter environment.

For the casual fun of outdoor social activities, the picnics and barbeques of warm weather, I seem to have substituted some indoor ones. I have frequent informal Sunday brunches, long leisurely buffet meals of easily prepared foods, and elaborate birthday or anniversary celebrations. Sometimes there are celebrations that would have passed with little fanfare in the heat of summer, but they serve now to bring some warmth and camaraderie into life. In all these social activities, the main ingredient is the people, those best loved and most congenial, adding, by their presence, a bit of sunshine to the day.

And what of the lethargy caused by inactivity at this time of the year? I join a local gym with an indoor track. Several times each week, wearing old shorts and crazy T-shirts, I fight the flab by walking a few miles in the company of other strangely-clad walkers and runners who come on all but the iciest days. In the locker room, I chat with the same people I might have met at the town pool in summer.

So, when I look back upon this winter, I know that I will feel it was less bleak and sunnier than others I have known. With the years I seem to have learned that I can, to a large extent, make my own weather.

Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.