When I was trying to sit down and think of what I was grateful for, it was hard to come up with something that didn’t sound either braggy or pretentious. Yes I’m grateful for my disposable income which allows me to travel (within reason), and yes I’m grateful for clean drinking water when so many others go without, but there had to be something more personal.
So I thought smaller; what really makes me happy?
Sitting outside on a warm Southern Californian morning, enjoying the spring flowers and gentle breeze, I thought of sunny days. I love the sunshine. I’m originally from the UK where we average only 1,633 hours of sunshine a year. The best days were those in the summer when the sun would finally arrive in force (sometimes only staying for a week or two) and everything would become easier. In June, the sun doesn’t set until almost 10 PM, so those few hot sunny days would stretch forever, building memories of evening walks through the fields with school friends and days that felt like they would never end.
The winter sun was equally magical, but all the more precious. It would never fully rise to where you thought it should rest, and it would not be strong enough to produce any warmth, but when it was finally able to break through the clouds it would cast its low pinkish light on the world and make the frost sparkle in the mornings, as if to remind you that this grey purgatory would not last forever.
Even in modern society, the sun still rules our understanding of the seasons. The first time in spring when you could finally feel the warmth seeping through, defrosting your bones after months of cold. The first time in summer when you could go out without full layers to keep warm, and inevitably, the first sunburn on unprepared English skin.
There’s plenty of science behind the love of sunshine; we need it for vitamin D and countries with more hours of sun typically have lower rates of depression. So, having moved to California and securing 3,254 hours of sunshine a year (doubling that of my previous life) I held on to what I had and appreciated every single hour of that sun.
It took almost a year before I could comprehend the idea that there were guaranteed sunny days ahead, and I didn’t have to spend every hour of sun outside, soaking it up before it left for another nine months. Don’t get me wrong, I still love to go outside and hike, explore, and just relax in the sun, I now just don’t feel guilty about spending a sunny afternoon inside watching movies.
These sunny days (and the lack of seasonal depression) have allowed me to do so much here that I’m grateful for. I’ve been camping and not sat the entire time inside a damp tent waiting for the rain to stop. I’ve been to the beach and actually sunbathed rather than wearing a raincoat and boots in August. I’ve been able to hike and actually see the views I climbed 3,000 feet to witness. I can go for a short walk in just what I’m wearing instead of stopping to double up on layers covering all my exposed skin before I open the door.
And I love what the sun can do to an entire area. Wildflowers bloom so quickly, and I have a whole new ecosystem to explore with cacti, joshua trees and lizards who also love to soak up the warmth.
So I could say that I am grateful for sunny days because they give me nutrition, they allow me to explore the world in peace, or they have enabled me to experience a whole new way of living. But in reality, I’m grateful because sunny days make me happy.
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