Discontent with Winter

I am from and of the North. Born in Alaska, grade school in Illinois and middle school in Nebraska. Winter is a way of life there, it is expected, accepted and-to a degree-embraced. People bundle up, they go outside, they spend time in the cold. The days are bright and fierce. Snow comes in great quantities blanketing everything for months at a time, when it starts to blacken around the edges more snow comes to cover the grime.

People cross country ski down Clark Street in Chicago. Sure it's cold and biting but it is expected. Northern Summers are hot and damp. Endless stifling, sticky days bleeding into one another. But winter bears down on the North and drives all thought of heat and humidity away. Summer and green things seem like a languid, half remembered dream. But here, in southern Ohio, on the cusp of the South, winter sneaks up in fits and starts. It is fickle and petulant. Snow appears and disappears in an afternoon. It is 50 during the day and 15 at night. Ice storms pop up with little warning and make the roads unbelievably hazardous. Grocery store shelves are emptied at the mere suggestion of inclement weather. Northern transplants long to fire up their snowblowers but there's never enough time. Seldom are there chances for sledding or snowball fights. The sky is grey and the landscape murky brown. There is no rhyme or reason. Nothing to count on.

Moving to Southern Ohio, 30 miles from the Ohio River and Kentucky has brought with it a steep-sometimes painful-weather related learning curve. I struggle to reconcile the cold with the lack of snow. But now it is mid-March and, already, little green shoots are poking out from the water logged soil and I am reminded that Spring here in Southern Ohio makes up for a lot...