A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Minnesota from Galveston, Texas, where I’d enjoyed temperatures in the very pleasant seventies. Last night in the Twin Cities, the mercury plummeted to fourteen degrees below zero with wind chills approaching thirty-five degrees below. It’s easy to enjoy life when you’re strolling along a balmy beach. But where’s the enjoyment when you’re stuck inside an icehouse? How do you survive when the sidewalks are sheets of ice and the roads tunnel through walls of plowed snow and your breath crystallizes in front of your face?
Here’s the secret: Don’t let Old Man Winter lock you up in his cold prison cell.
In Saint Paul, we’re in the midst of Winter Carnival, a celebration of all things frigid. We have a hunt in which hordes of people follow clues and dig through endless snow drifts in search of a small medallion, which can net the finder a prize of $10,000. We hold snow and ice sculpture contests that feature beautiful but ephemeral art. We have a parade. Most days, we walk in our parks and enjoy the unique winter blessings they offer. (Today, I heard the wolves howling in our local zoo.)
Winter is soup season! It’s the time for drinking dark beer and hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps and draughts of strong coffee and good English black tea. It’s the time for jigsaw puzzles and card games and long hours of wonderful reading. (I just finished an ARC of an absolutely terrific thriller—To Catch A Storm—by fellow Midwest author Mindy Mejia; the story takes place during a horrible ice storm; a perfect read while cozied up on my warm couch.)
I’m not saying winter isn’t challenging, just that if you live in the northern climes, you have to know how to make the best of it.
So, what do you do where you live to battle the winter cold, or the winter doldrums that often turn moods so blue? I’d love to know.
I sit by one of my windows and do jigsaw puzzles while looking at the beautiful bleak midwinter. That is one thing that I do!
Well, pull out a copy of the latest William Kent Krueger novel, of course! Hot chocolate, yes! Sun Dogs and Hoar Frost are among the gifts of the frozen chosen. Thanks for sharing the fun photos and your thoughts on winter. I see that you are planning to break things up by your visit to Punta Gorda! Be sure to stop by Ft. Meyer’s Beach and spend some money at the businesses that are making a go with food trucks to try to survive the grueling slow return from Hurricane Ian. Great shell opportunities on the unused beaches there but use caution and wear good shoes. Blessings!
That ARC sounds intriguing!
On Long Island, we’re in the midst of two-days of Arctic temps. I know, nothing like MN. I’m staying inside and working on my first novel.
I read Ordinary Grace recovering from a 24 hour bout with Covid…fully boosted, it quickly gave up the horrid symptoms on my 84 year old body, leaving only fatigue and a cough for a few weeks.
Your writing lifted my soul and made the time of recovery enjoyable. I am a writer myself, and I appreciate your gift of writing believable dialogue to enhance the presence and emotion of the reader, and also uplifting and inspiring my soul.
We “ enjoy” snow, ice, and all things winter in Iowa through January and then head to Phoenix for seven weeks. By the time we return winter has pretty much faded.
I recall learning in a college philosophy class (many years ago) that we cannot really know a thing until we also know its opposite. Maybe that’s why we have winter. It provides us with the opposite of what we treasure in the summer.
Instead of gliding on my patio, savoring the June breezes, watching avian antics, and trying to coax a chipmunk out of hiding, I stay indoors–and look out. Windows (glass! how glorious!) frame what I see, much like a lens frames what the photographer wants us to focus on.
So my eyes take in the snow dunes sculpted by the harsh northwest wind, and I wonder if at least one of those flakes has made the long journey to Iowa from the north pole.
I am startled by tracks on my front stoop and, moving from window to window, I follow their path, thinking they must belong to a moose because of their size and shape. (I learn from my daughter-in-law that they’re rabbit tracks. She knows because she tracked rabbits a lot when she was a kid. And, yes, there is a very big rabbit living in my neighborhood.)
On gray afternoons, I sit in my four seasons room, clad in a sweatshirt and pants over which I have layered two fluffy throws, turn the dial on my space heater to high, and read or work crossword puzzles. Now and then I stand to stretch or grab an Oreo from the pantry. Before I return to my rocking chair and begin the process of re-covering, I stare out the west-facing window. Could it be? Yes–it’s the sun! It enters tentatively, a beam at a time. I go back to my book or crossword puzzle, glancing up now and then to mark the illumination, in turn, of a plant, a chair, a photo.
From my bedroom window, I study the skeleton of my backyard maple, searching for that last leaf, now curled into its dried and brown self, clinging to its branch. Just as I turn from the window, the branch shivers violently, battered by the north wind. The leaf still holds.
I step into a hot bath at the end of each day and ponder the Creator’s gifts of warmth and water and skin. I look up at my bathroom window, thanking it for letting me know when the wind is out of the northeast and for being high enough that no one outside can look in.
About the third week of February, my windows let me know that the snow dunes are on their way to somewhere else.
In the winter, I do not retreat to climates where summer and winter wear similar–sometimes identical–faces. I do not skate, ski, snow sculpt, or dive into icy waters to raise money for a good cause or simply to defy the elements.
Mostly, I stay inside–looking out.
In Central PA I’m going for walks behind the snow blower clearing sidewalks to get to my favorite coffee shop. (The Kind Cafe) Also reading Tamarack County.