Sunday, January 11, 2015

Don't talk about the weather


It is New England, here, where I live. Every year, winter comes. It varies in severity, but we can rely on at least some snow, and on at least some really, really cold weather. We're in a cold snap at the moment -- right at a time when one could reliably predict such a thing -- days that barely make it out of single Fahrenheit digits, nights in negative numbers, a weak sun that doesn't provide anything other than psychological warmth.

And yet, just as reliably, so many people seem so utterly shocked, appalled, and all-consumed by the fact that it is winter and it is cold outside. Yup. Every year. Get just like this. And we survive.

I guess some number of people each year decide to leave New England because of the weather. I guess they move to Florida, or California (southern, if they understand the varieties of weather there), or Arizona. Maybe they are retirement age and they have had enough, or maybe they are college age and are striking out for anything and everything different. Maybe they are college grads and they want to start their new, adult lives in a warmer place.

But most people stay. And most people seem annually confounded.

I was thinking, when we took down the Christmas tree yesterday (so absolutely dried out that ornaments were starting to fall off of branches bent low by lack of moisture), that I might just have it in me to be the crazy lady who leaves her Christmas tree and decorations up all year long. It would require, really, an artificial tree, but that's about it. However, even though now there are bins of ornaments waiting for me to wrap them all up and put them all the way away, I realized that it's the absence of Christmas during the rest of the year that makes Christmas so wonderful. It would lose its magic if it were always here.

So I am thinking of winter that way. It comes, every year, and it brings some challenges along with it, but it is in fact a wonderful thing and as much a part of the measure and glory of the year as every other mile marker we watch for during the annual parade of weeks, months, and seasons.

Happy winter to you.

1 comment:

Natalie, the Chickenblogger said...

I like this. I can't say I am an authority on celebrating, enduring, or surviving winter, but cycles, and seasons come, and they go... Might as well make the most of our days.