WinterWoes
�What a strange expression you have on your face. So cross, so miserable, as if you were living in a climate not suited to your nature.� �From �Mother,� Jamaica Kincaid
I never had any desire to live in Chicago. After college, I always thought I would end up on the East or West Coast. I had always pictured the Midwest as a blank slate. In fact, I was so uninterested in the region that after grade school, I had never concerned myself with the order in which the states in this region fell. I had heard good things about Chicago but I had heard good things about many other cities that intrigued me more.
Due to school, work, and circumstance, I have lived for varying amounts of time in the Southwest, Mexico, and Florida. Places, in short, that do not experience �winter,� as it is understood here. I�ve never before lived in a place that did not have 300-plus days of sunshine a year. Most places I lived didn�t have snow or even that much cold, for that matter.
As I child, I had seen snow. The Panhandle of Texas gets its share, which is very little. I built snowmen and women and gone skiing in New Mexico and Colorado. Here�s the difference about the winter I grew up with and the winter here: the snow came quickly and melted just as fast. The following week was just as likely to be in the 60s as it was to be in the 30s. While I lived in Miami, I wore a jacket, I believe, exactly two times. And that jacket is my spring/summer jacket here.
Mexico was a little different. The house I lived in did not have air conditioning or heat. It relied on its thick walls to absorb energy and keep the house either cool or warm, which meant that when I stayed up late reading in bed, I was under several layers of blankets and held my book with gloves on. But even that cold was no great burden. The truly cold days could be counted easily on two hands and the sun-filled days made up for the cold nights.
When I lived in these warmer climates and I watched weather reports in other parts of the country, I would see the Midwest or the Northeast and shiver. In my T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, I would see newscasts of snowstorms or impossibly low temperatures and I would say, �Those poor bastards.�
Now I�m one of those poor bastards. I moved here partly for school and partly for love and don�t regret the decision. Most days. This winter is much better than last year�s, even though it is colder, because last year�s was my first. I had never owned a parka before or serious gloves and hats. I was woefully underprepared because I had never needed serious winter gear; I had no more than what was required for a weekend excursion into a cold climate. But all that has changed.
I�ve gone from feeling that seasons are overrated to enjoying the change from one season to the next. The only thing that remains is for me to someday learn to appreciate the winter here. When the air is bitterly cold and the wind so biting that it hurts my teeth, I wonder, will that ever happen? I�ve had days when people on the street tell me, �It�s going to be all right,� which must mean the expression on my face is so miserable it moves strangers to console me.
I admire Chicagoans and their endurance and the way in which they elevate tolerating the cold into a quality to be cherished. The native Chicagoans/Midwesterners I know love the winter and the cold and the gear. They can�t wait for heavy snowfalls, for boots and mittens, and to brace themselves against the wind to show that no matter what Old Man Winter might bring, they�re still standing.
I admire them. But I don�t want to be them. While I can certainly tolerate the cold, it�s different for me because I realize that I don�t have to. There�s a whole section of the country that doesn�t suffer from November to May. And while it�s true that cold purifies, so does heat. And I�d be happy to choose my trial by fire over a trial by ice any day.
Illustration by Rebecca Kramer