I’ve been saving a particular topic for a while now. It’s something that is definitely cool in northeast Iowa. Downright frozen, in fact. I’m referring to the Iowa winters, which hold the record as the coldest winters I’ve ever gone through, and I’ve gone through northern Michigan winters. For those of you not accustomed to northern Michigan winters, you learn to get used to having three to four inches of snow dumped on you during the average snowfall, and temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit are pretty much a way of life until about April. I thought I knew all about cold and blowing and feeling as though you were lost in the Antarctic.
Then came Iowa, and Minnesota for that matter. Both places manage to get just as cold as northern Michigan, but northern Michigan has trees. You don’t know just how important trees are until you’re in a place where trees aren’t vast forests that spring up around you, but little clumps that occasionally appear on the horizon. Trees are the best windbreakers ever, and it’s only when you’re in an area with no trees do you realize how nice that is. Out here, windchill is a thing to be feared. I used to laugh when I would get email notices at my job telling us that schools were closed due to windchill, and then I tried walking from my apartment to the Cresco Fitness Center in the winter. I won’t say the decision almost killed me, but by the time I arrived at the gym I was praying that the weather would warm up at least a degree or two, or that the wind would stop blowing for five minutes. Admittedly, during the walk back the wind did stop blowing for a second or two, before starting right back up again. You may not believe me when I say the wind was consciously taunting me, and if you don’t you have never lived in Iowa.
Windchill takes a day which is only normally damned cold and turns it into weather you more commonly found in the Antarctic. It’s actually hazardous to go out when the windchill drops the temperature below -30, and after you’ve spent, say, five minutes having below freezing air cut through your lined pants as though they didn’t exist, you’ll develop an appreciation for the Great Indoors.
By itself the windchill would be bad enough, but then there are the blizzards. Northeastern Iowa attracts blizzards like cigarettes attract welfare queens, and once a blizzard comes through, all you can do is stay indoors. Granted, I say this as someone who has gone out during blizzards twice, and both times I’ve been confronted by snowdrifts that close off all but the middle of the road, miles of sheer ice and whiteout conditions that limit visibility to maybe ten feet in front of you if you are lucky. An Iowa blizzard can force pretty much all businesses to close for the day, and that includes fast food restaurants and gas stations.
So this winter, I was ready. I was going to document all the Iowa winter in its snow-filled, ice-coated business-closing glory. I was going to talk about the awful majesty nature can sometimes call forth, and how it makes me feel just a little less safe than I usually do, as though I’m at the mercy of what may be a capricious, random climate. I’m telling you all this information so that when I say that for the past month the weather has been absolutely beautiful you can get the full force of the irony. Most of the time, the weather has been in the 40s, which is positively balmy compared to your average winter. There has been some snow on the ground, which left the day after it came, and most people are out and about enjoying this weather.
If you were to ask most people how they feel about this weather, they’ll tell you they are relieved. Most people in Cresco look upon winter the same way Cinderella looked upon her evil stepmother—you have to live with her, but it’s always such a joy when she doesn’t show. On the other hand, people don’t seem to have altered their winter habits any, either. People are still cooped up inside, watching TV, and most people take care not to be outside for longer than they can help it. It’s like they’re on autopilot somehow. They know they don’t have to stay inside this winter, but they still do anyway. I have two theories about this.
The first theory is that everyone knows the weather is supposed to be colder and nastier, but no one really wants to come out and say so. We all know the weather’s doing all it can do to be winter around here, so why not just dress warmly and trundle to and from our cars everyday anyway? It’ll make the weather feel like it’s done its job.
The second theory is that, for all its inconvenience and pain, there are a lot of great things to do when you’re cooped up indoors. You can catch up on DVD and TV watching, for instance, or you can read that book that you’ve just never had the time to pick up. Winter is perhaps the best season for forcing people to relax, and while we could all just go about doing things outdoors and trying to get all the projects on our ever-present to do list done, it’s nice to have a season that forces us to relax for a bit. No one really wants to give that up. So we’ll gladly go to our homes, dressed warmer than we need to, and then kick off our shoes, pull up a chair and just relax. Some people will turn on the TV and watch the game. Others will fire up that new video game. Still others will finally watch that movie they’ve been wanting to for years. Others may also surf the web for a few hours, grateful that for a few weeks they have an excuse for spending so much time on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment