Let the whinging begin.
I know winter has (un)officially started because I had to break out the long johns for the first time on Thursday.
Immediately, on TV, radio, at work in the grocery store, the negativity started to spread.
I am not buying in. I think winter-hate is self-reinforcing. We listen to it over and over again and we start to believe it. We start to believe it and we start to repeat it.
I have long made a point of trying to defeat this “seasonism,” if you will allow me to coin that term meaning discrimination against our longest season.
Seasonism is rampant in Saskatchewan and mostly applies to winter although sometimes fall gets tagged as a kind of ally of winter. You’ve probably heard people derogatorily say things like, “Yep, fall is here and that means you-know-what can’t be far behind.”
I did not have the choice of being born in Saskatchewan, but I did make the choice to come back here and I still have the choice of not staying.
The thing is, I love winter and I am going to make the case, it is not as bad as people make it out to be.
I have a really good friend who agrees and who forces me get out and realize winter is actually really beautiful.
Lady MacBeth loves the snow. She bounds through it, rolls around in it, sticks her nose in it and generally cannot be happier.
Of course, she’s a Newfoundland dog. She is totally built for winter with her heavily padded feet, downy undercoat and thick fur coat.
Of course, I am a human. I am also totally built for winter with my large brain and wardrobe of winter clothing. I have the ability to build a shelter, start a fire, drive a car.
On Friday morning, Lady and I went out and it was fantastic. We walked the trails by Hopkins Lake at dawn. It was peaceful and cozy in the woods. It was breezy on the shoreline carrying the honking of geese and apparently some delectable scent to Lady’s delight as she stuck her face into the wind and
I found out on the way home it was -18 and supposedly felt like -21 with the windchill. I wouldn’t have known because I was dressed for it.
Now, I am not saying there are not days in the winter when it is not suitable for going outside.
I had friends from Texas visit me in Ottawa in February one time. On a brutally cold morning, the temperature in the low minus-40s, they tried to walk from their hotel to dim sum.
She called me after and yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you people living here?”
I generally don’t go out walking around when it gets that cold, although I definitely could if I wanted to.
Those days, though, are really quite infrequent, even in Saskatchewan. Honestly, there are just as many unpleasant days in the summer when it is so stinking hot reading makes you sweat or there are so many mosquitoes we have little choice but to take refuge in our wonderfully air-conditioned homes and be endlessly entertained by the plethora of technology at our disposal.
This winter help me end seasonism. The next time someone complains, point out something good about the day. Life is too short and winters are too long to be unhappy about the weather.
