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Confessions of a Light Junkie

By Kim Goodliffe
On: Wed, Nov 1, 2006 , Tagged:

I admit it; I’m a light junkie. On hot summer days I smugly disobey my dermatologist and sunbathe nude at Wreck Beach, exposing moles and skin to the catch-22 of Vitamin D and sun damage. Thousands join me in this fixation. By autumn, those good vibrations are fading. By winter, those of us who so happily read Paulo Coelho’s Warrior of Light: A Manual as we soaked up rays by the ocean’s shores now sit through television marathons trying to absorb indirect light from back-to-back reruns of The O.C. and Visiting VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Festival of Lights is
one way to get a light fix
(Courtesy of VanDusen Botanical Garden)Baywatch. With the dark season upon us, we search Lotusland for replacement sources of sparkling, dazzling sunlight.

According to Raymond Lam, Director of the UBC Mood Disorders Clinic, roughly one to three percent of Canadians suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (better known as SAD) and 15 percent suffer from “winter blahs”. (I call my condition the Ontario-born Blah Humbugs.) Both have the same symptoms, but in varying degrees, says Lam. “You may feel a little down, but it’s just the fatigue. You may be sleeping more. Having difficulty getting up in the morning. Eating more.” The list goes on.

While those afflicted with SAD may need prescription drugs and early morning light therapy to get out of their seasonal cave, people with milder symptoms must GET OUTDOORS! Even though the sky may be grey as an army blanket, Lam says that the outdoors, even on a cloudy day in Vancouver, is about five times as bright as the brightest office.

For those West Coasters looking for a fix, I offer up my own winter “light” prescription, heavy on Vancouver’s own Vitamin D substitutes:

  • Visit VanDusen Botanical Garden’s Festival of Lights. This magical spectacle features 1.3 million light bulbs ablaze on an Eden of plants and trees. Starting at Thanksgiving, it takes a team of 35 people eight weeks to test the lines of light bulbs, and six weeks for the gardeners to hang them. Feast your eyes on this feat of ingenuity in blue, red, yellow, green and white.
  • Go to the Winter Solstice Lantern Festival, December 21. Produced by the Secret Lantern Society, the sun is given a big homecoming bash in six Vancouver neighbourhoods. I walk the seawall route with hundreds of sun-deprived zombies holding a candle or a lantern.
  • Kindle the Hanukkiah. In the Jewish tradition this eight-day candle lighting ritual commemorates the occasion that took place after a liberation battle was won, when the lamp in the Temple of Jerusalem stayed alight for eight days on one day’s supply of oil.
  • Stand near residential Christmas lights.
  • Use the Light Book. Created at UBC, the book-sized box emits rays that make you feel all Florida without all the bad clothing (approximately $300).
  • Attend a laser show at the H.R. MacMillan Planetarium.
  • Cross-country ski or snowshoe at Cypress by day or night for a snow-blindingly dazzling good time.
  • Watch four-hour stints of TV-drama CSI. Try Las Vegas. Miami. Las Vegas. Miami.

See you at the Light Junkies Convention. And remember, the snowdrops and crocuses will be out soon enough, breaking the city’s grey spell.