After several days of great quietude on my part, with little of my usual enthusiasm showing, my husband paused after parking in the lot at Tractor Supply and asked me, “Are you ‘under the weather’?” I hesitated to tell him that I had been feeling pretty danged crappy, no energy, almost no joy in being alive. I had just been going through my usual self-care routine and house chores like an automaton. I did not like to complain or whine. Neither did I like to admit that my belief in self-healing seemed, at the moment, to be failing me. Thus, I said, “Ummmm, maybe not so well.” Then, to ease the angst, I added, “Where did that phrase ‘under the weather’ come from and what does it mean.” He said, “It means you are allowing the weather to control you.”
Browsing around Tractor Supply while he searched for bolts with which to fix the wooden planks of our raised garden beds, I pondered our exchange. The experience of being in a big box store did nothing to compound my apathy, but neither did it relieve my feelings of distress. When I arrived home, I went online to learn more about being ‘under the weather.’
A Google search reveled this: “To be under the weather is to be unwell. This comes from a maritime source. In the old days, when a sailor was unwell, he was sent down below to help his recovery, under the deck and away from the weather.”
More: “Under the weather. To feel ill. Originally it meant to feel seasick or to be adversely affected by bad weather. The term is correctly ‘under the weather bow’ which is a gloomy prospect; the weather bow is the side upon which all the rotten weather is blowing.” From Salty Dog Talk: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions by Bill Beavis and Richard G. McCloskey (Sheridan House, Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., 1995. First published in Great Britain, 1983).
I had recently been reading quite a bit about the sea (The Stranger from the Sea by Winston Graham) so perhaps that was the trigger for my inclement attitude. Or it could be something closer to home—the recent heavy rains, the colder temperatures, the upsurge in the mold count, all of which had kept me more closely confined to the house. This led me to thinking about what it would be like to be “above the weather,” rather like the pilots of airplanes who must get above the storm clouds in order to prevent turbulence or damage. How might one fly higher and float above it all?
Food for thought. Speaking of which, I turned my attention to two things that were certain to help me feel better. Baking spelt bread and making Portuguese Green soup. Spelt is an ancient grain with a nutty, robust flavor that I mixed with yeast, molasses, sea salt, coconut oil and filtered water. The “green” in the soup comes from garden kale cooked with onion, garlic, celery, carrot, potatoes, sea salt, and olive oil.
~ LJ