IT’S OFFICIAL. THE cabin fever season started early and hit hard this year.
Cabin fever is a common, chronic mind-altering seasonal disorder that usually makes its appearance sometime after the holidays are over and only the mess, bills and guilt remain.
Experts agree that the early appearance of this disorder may have been caused by what has turned out to be the mildest winter in years. As predicted by this columnist in my long-range weather prediction column last fall.
That’s how I knew my own cabin fever was coming on, when I found myself writing a newspaper column about writing a newspaper column.
Cabin fever victims often endure a wide range of symptoms ranging from drowsiness to insomnia.
Cabin fever sufferers can experience bloating, depression, brain fog and an inescapable feeling that everyone else is better off than they are.
Probably because they are.
The next thing you know, the cabin fever victim is hoarding hot water bottles, patching their boots and watching old movies.
Ask yourself, have you ever worked on a humongous jigsaw puzzle that you had no chance of ever finishing?
Have you written a letter to the editor of a newspaper?
Tied flies or tried to organize your tackle box?
You could have cabin fever.
It’s not something you have to be ashamed of anymore. I had cabin fever.
This is my story.
Many experts will tell you they have a cure for cabin fever.
They don’t.
I must have tried them all. I played board (pronounced bored) games, but consistently lost.
I tried to get organized, but first I had to make a list.
You need a pencil and paper for that, and there’s no way to find anything in a house that’s cluttered with the effects of cabin fever.
Then I realized that these so-called cures for cabin fever were nothing but a self-defeating waste of time that only left me convinced that winter would never end.
I began to take the weather as a personal affront.
I blamed the weatherman. Which only led to a self-loathing, knee-jerking, gut-wrenching, food-hoarding disorder, where I stocked up on chocolate until the grocery store shelves were almost bare.
Knowing you have cabin fever is the first step in finding a cure.
Fortunately, I found some real cures for cabin fever that are both therapeutic and diagnostic.
Winter steelhead fishing is a self-defeating form of cabin fever therapy where the sufferer wades into a glacial stream, casting at an imaginary fish while various appendages slowly freeze.
Neurotic feelings of desperation, futility and rage only increase with each passing hour as you realize that, even if you were to catch a steelhead, you would probably have to turn it loose.
Still, after a day of steelhead fishing, the cabin fever sufferer will be cured and transformed into a hypothermia victim who is perfectly content to sit in front of a hot stove and thaw out the hands and feet with warm liquids.
Digging razor clams is another sure-fire cabin fever cure.
You don’t have to be insane to dig razor clams in the night tides of January. But it helps.
At least you can take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.
There is usually a big crowd of other cabin fever sufferers walking out into the surf of the ocean beach in the dark, where a rogue wave can slam into you at any time and drag you out into the dark abyss.
It worked for me.
I got a clam.
I didn’t get drug out to sea.
I didn’t have cabin fever anymore.
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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
