On the Palm Tree as an Antidepressant

My mother and I were just talking about this, about how strongly she loves palm trees and how it would be difficult to be depressed when you’re in sight of them. It’s not the palm tree itself that has antidepressant qualities, of course—the palm tree is more like a “side effect” of what truly affects mood and emotion: namely, the warmth and SUNshine you find in those places that have palm trees.

Actually, what we had was a conversation about people’s casual use of the word “depression,” and how that’s different from capital-D-Depression, the thing that isn’t circumstantial, but biochemical or clinical. As someone who deals with the big-D kind, though, I can say that circumstances can alleviate Depression—and palm-tree-sunshine is just such a circumstance, for me. In other words, I largely agree with the thesis statement, that the sight of palm trees could be an indication of depression easing.

In my mother’s case, it’s literally true, because her affected-mood, if not big-D-Depression, was seasonally inflicted. The dark and cold of winter interfered with happiness. Which is a primary reason why she has her little airy-sunny winter place in California now.

We’ve just spent the week with her there, and I spent the whole visit admiring how perfect her “tiny home” is, for her purposes. To a large degree, that’s true because of how she has set things up. She loves to have company, for example—to have my godparents visit, her girlfriends visit, us visit. So she has specifically set herself up to accommodate company. She has big fluffy linens for her fold-out couch-bed, and empty cabinets for guests to unpack into, empty shelves in the bathroom cabinet, fold-out hooks for guests’ bathroom towels. A guest in my mother’s tiny-home feels welcome and wanted—and assuming she only invites people whom she really wants to be around, the tiny-ness isn’t any problem. The three of us—my mother and my husband and I—have always rubbed along very comfortably together, despite our various underlying differences.

We went swimming on Christmas Day and sang carols around her fire-table. She & I played cheerleader while Jon did Useful Things like installing a new ceiling light and fan, new bathroom faucet, fixing the flow to the shower head. She’s always diffident about asking for handyman-help, but he likes doing those Useful Things. We finished a booger of a wooden jigsaw puzzle, and picked up just-picked strawberries from a farm-stand in the neighborhood.

We checked out the Christmas lights—and more to the point, the historic hotel—at La Quinta Inn. Yesterday we went golf-putting on the little putting course at her Retirement Resort. Neither of us golfs, but it was fun to bang around and occasionally par a putting hole.

It’s been a lovely interval for us, away from the winds and freezing temps of home, and under the auspices of Palm trees. Palm trees and Sun—and Family!