Seasonal Affective Disorder. It's real y'all. Usually it gets called the winter blues. People in cold climates start running low on vitamin d and sunshine and being warm and develop depression related specifically to the weather. A little sunshine and voila. All better. The opposite can be true though too. Even though I'm not exactly an outdoorsman ( stop laughing. Seriously, I hear you) I DO enjoy outside time. I love feeling a breeze on my face and hearing little nature sounds. I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado and returned to Colorado for college. There is nothing better than lying on Colorado grass in early fall when the cool wind starts blowing. In September. The past few weeks here in Tejas have been HOT. And now that the pool is closed, kids are in school and friends have scattered to the non existent wind... My SAD kicks in. I MISS mountains and trips to Estes park and cherry cider from the cherry store on the way. I miss old town and coffee from the Northern. I miss martini nights on Linden and the intramural fields on campus at night and the oval and aspen. I ache to have a VIEW. By yesterday I hit my low. I stayed in bed most of the day. I ate more than one drumstick. (The frozen kind dipped in chocolate...) I made my husband cook dinner. I pouted. I whined. I moped. I cried. Weather channel promises that in ten days it MIGHT get down to 69. Our high might be 89. There might be a little rain. So when I woke up today I was determined to change focus. How to survive the next two weeks? We used to always plan a beach trip for Labor Day weekend around Lucas' birthday. That won't work this year so I looked up a few short drive away destinations and found it : innerspace caverns in Georgetown Texas. A quick two hour drive away. We poured some iced coffee, loaded up the kids and were off. We got to Georgetown at lunchtime and so we stopped at an adorable place called Monument Cafe. They have somehow captured the FEEL of a historic restaurant but without feeling pretentious like some do. The food is somewhat farm to table with local suppliers and local roasted fair trade coffee. Breakfast all day. Pies to drool over. Biscuits while you wait. Bacon vinaigrette on your fried chicken salad. Get my drift? Eat it all. The boys were wowed by the ambiance and limes in their water.
After lunch we drove the two minutes to the cavern, which is right in town and just off the highway. That surprised me until we learned that the cave was discovered when they drilled core samples before putting in the highway in the late 60's. The tour takes about an hour but ours went a little long because someone got a little fainty. It was WARM at 72 and 80% humidity with very little ventilation to protect the living cave, but the dark felt amazing. It was like stepping into another world for a little while and was definitely what this summer worn mama needed. The kids were full of wows and thank yous and hugs. And so was I. Our creator covered it all y'all. What we see above the ground and what we would only see below when we built roads.
These secret caverns, full of beauty and mystery and life. Life we can not contribute a single thing to and only damage should we try. It is His beauty. Just like our lives, they exist for His glory, but often we wall ourselves up. Caverns hidden under the ground.
Maybe we are waiting for the next job, the next baby, the next class, the next project, the next season. What if our tough days are just God drilling core samples?
Just God revealing our hidden caverns and the glory he is growing there like living stalactite and stalagmites.
What if our frustration and resentment are just stone barriers he is slowly whittling into beautiful formations to show off his glory? What if pools of refreshment lie just beneath the darkness of our self pity, ready to be illuminated by his truth?
I still miss Colorado. And I still hate Texas in September. But October is coming... And until then I'll remember that glory lies beneath as well as above. And joy. Joy always comes in the morning.
