The case for winter

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We’ve arrived to the part of winter when, on a sunny day and not too much wind, a temperature of 23 degrees feels tolerable, balmy even. This is unimaginable in November, when our first dip into the high-30s inspires puffer jackets and howls of “it’s soooooo cold.” And yet, every year, we somehow adjust and grow our winter skins.

I am writing this on Friday morning, as a “bomb cyclone” looms off shore. The latest forecast says it’ll mostly miss us. Given the size of the icicles hanging off my house — and the snow piled up in my driveway — this is mostly a relief. But it’s a little sad, too. Bear with me.

From now until mid-March (when I’m anticipating another bout of the winter blues will arrive) I’m in the business of selling winter to myself, and the people around me. Try it?

I love how people panic-grocery shop when a storm forecast comes down. Baskets overflowing with foodstuffs and supplies, knowing nods with strangers, a Hunger Games-like intensity in the marshmallow aisle and at the deli counter. It inspires a sense of camaraderie, a “we’re all in this together,” that isn’t present on a regular old day.

I love how the air smells, hours before a big snow storm rolls in. There’s a waft of thick sweetness that telegraphs it’s time to get cozy. The winter light, too, is beautiful. We’re treated to “cosmic smoothie” sunsets at this time of year.

I love how a big snow makes everything and everyone stop. There’s very little in our world that inspires that slowness. Once flakes really start to fall, people give themselves over to it. There’s no sense yet in ploughing or shoveling, or running errands now. All there is to do is wait and listen to the quiet. In the early hours of a storm, you can hear each flake landing, softly, one on top of the other.

The first 24 hours after a storm are magic too (if perhaps less quiet). Everything is covered in white, a fresh start. So much of winter in New England is gray and brown, but the bright white canvass makes every color more vibrant. A patch of clear sky looks more blue, the slide on my neighbors swingset suddenly appears a brilliant shade of green. I wouldn’t have noticed that before. Of course this all changes — especially in the city — as time goes by. The fluffy white snow gets compacted under its own weight or it rains and freezes everything into giant blocks of ice; the grit and grime makes a comeback. But for a while, everything looks clean.

I love how you can hear the world wake up after a storm. People clomp in their boots, rev up their snow ploughs, scrape their shovels against the buried pavement. I don’t enjoy cleaning off my car, but I will say it gives me a sense of accomplishment. A small, if temporary, triumph over Mother Nature.

I love how snow and cold can make all of us feel vulnerable and kid-like again, stripping us down to our essentials. We all have one simple, essential need: to find warmth. I like to be outside in it — to bundle up and experience the elements, on a walk or a cold dip, the frigid air stinging my nostrils. My house is on a hill, and during the storm last weekend, before the ploughs arrived, we joined our neighbors for a night-sledding session down our street. My 14-year-old neighbor set up a perfect jump. After a while, we got cold and we went inside, with bright red cheeks and chapped lips. The snow got under the elastic gaiters of my snow pants and into my boots, drenching my socks and the cuffs of my pants, generating the kind of cold that clings to your legs. It was a good kind of uncomfortable.

I don’t mean to over-romanticize frigid temperatures. The cold kills. Heating a home is wildly expensive. Snow makes  for dangerous driving. Icy sidewalks are treacherous. Winter weather makes it harder for people to get to work, a doctor’s appointment, on a plane to see family. But hating winter weather won’t change it.

I had the chance to see author George Saunders in conversation with Paul Tremblay in Boston this week. Saunders is on a book tour for his new novel, “Vigil,” and the event sent me back to something Saunders said during an interview with Cheryl Strayed nearly six years ago. I first listened to it in the early weeks of the pandemic when we were all reeling from the uncertainty. It’s odd to go back and listen to the interview now, knowing what we know about what happened to us during the pandemic. But so much of it holds up. In that episode, he reads Strayed a letter he wrote to his creative writing students at Syracuse. In the letter, he writes about the universe as a tiger, and all of us humans, as tiny beings (“Barbies and Kens”) on the tiger’s back. Usually the tiger is sleeping, but sometimes it wakes up and causes a commotion — whether it’s a pandemic, or heartbreak, or a bomb cyclone threatening. His point is that the tiger could wake at any time and change things, because that’s what tigers do. “It’s only when we expect solidity — non-change — that we get taken by surprise. (And we always expect solidity, no matter how well we know better.),” he writes.

It’s a quote we keep turning to at Cog, trying and failing and trying again, to learn its lesson. We can’t stop the tiger, but maybe we can offer it, and ourselves, a little more ease.

Stay warm out there, friends.