You are sick of listening to me moan and groan about the unseasonal weather, and climate change, and all such hippie tree-hugger liberal talk, I know. So I will zip my lip and say no more.
(Rhode Island has hardly had any snow this winter so far, by the way. Our winter has been positively balmy. I walked downtown with no coat - just a sweater - the other day. The grass is still pretty springy and fresh in most places around Providence, and I’ve seen things blooming. In January.)
(Oops. Zip the lip. Sorry.)
This winter reminds me of the typical Northwest winter: cool, cloudy, dark, often foggy and rainy. It’s the kind of winter that engenders “cabin fever”: you stay inside with your loved ones, waiting for spring, until you just can’t stand them any longer, and then you get out the shotgun.
Dark foggy weather doesn’t frighten me. I grew up in the Northwest. It’s nothin’. By April, we’ll be tearing off our winter underwear and dancing among the daffodils. For now –
Well, but still. You have to make it through the darkness.
A few years ago, Partner and I were driving through rural Oregon. It was midsummer, and the hills were covered with beautiful firs and pines, and the sky was wonderfully blue. “I could live here,” Partner said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m picturing this in mid-December. You wouldn’t even be able to see those hills, the fog would be so thick. It’d get light around ten in the morning, and dark again by four in the afternoon. From November through mid-February.”
Partner regarded me mildly. He has only ever seen the Northwest in summertime, and I think he has only ever seen it rain there once, one day in Portland. He doesn’t really believe me.
But oh yes it’s true.
(Oh, did I mention that it’s snowing in Egypt this winter? Yeah. Oh, and they’re having a huge and extremely unseasonal windstorm – with hundred-mile-an-hour winds – on the central Oregon coast.)
(Huh!)
(Enjoy the future, kids. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.)
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