One of the best things about getting older is the ability to refine your personality. I look back at the person I was even five years ago, and I clearly am not the same. I’m better.
My likes (chunky peanut butter!) and dislikes (Two and a Half Men!) are my own; the older I get, the more I realize that my predilection (and, conversely, my antipathy) towards certain things has formed because I like or dislike them, not necessarily influenced by parents, friends, media or nationality.
Which brings me to the point of this post: I hate winter.
I hate winter despite that Utah, the state where I live, has “Greatest Snow on Earth” on its license plates. I hate winter despite the fact I was born and raised in Canada. I hate winter despite numerous Christmas specials praising the magical qualities of snow. (Case in point: that one song in White Christmas: “I want to wash my hands, my hair and face in snow.” What the hell?)
People think that because I’m Canadian that I should have some natural affinity for winter living. They are wrong. When you grow up with six months of winter and then move to a more temperate climate, where each season is more evenly measured, it’s like God answering a prayer for something you didn’t even know you needed. (There wasn’t a single Halloween where I didn’t wear my snowsuit underneath my costume. Try being bundled up like Randy from A Christmas Story and then put on your Superman outfit. It’s not nearly as fun as it sounds.)
And now that I am acclimatized to living over a thousand miles south of where I grew up, I have come to realize another preference: I like being warm and I love sunshine. I lived in North Carolina for two years, where summertime is the soggy season, a mishmash of heat and humidity that forces one to perspire with little or no effort. The summers here in Utah can be oppressively hot, too, but it’s a dry heat. (Driving with the windows rolled down in July is like charging through the path of a giant hair dryer.) I recall family weekend getaways to St. George, right on the Utah-Arizona border, hopping in the pool and then lying in the grass, sopping wet, hoping the sun would dry me out like a sponge on a kitchen counter.
One of my favorite, favorite things is to sit outside in the evening in a lawn chair and watch the sun set, seeing the menagerie of oranges, pinks and purples swirl in the sky into the deep dark blue of night. With or without clouds, a sunset is a beautiful sight. Like snowflakes, a sunset never repeats itself.
Those memories, and the anticipation of the summer that is surely to come, is what gets me through the bleak winter nights that begin before dinner and last until breakfast.
I often hear people say how pretty snow looks. And yes, there is a magical quality to a spot of land untouched by shovel or plow. But in my opinion, a postcard is just as effective.
I should probably live in California or Florida.
1 Comment
January 6, 2009 at 11:18 pm
I totally agree with you on this. Snow=bad, no snow= good. I know very profound.