From Reader Joe Donuts (probably a pseudonym):
“Your wallpaper got me pondering as do many of your posts about what used to be Great Britain. I spent most of my 20 plus years in Uncle Sam’s Traveling Air Circus stationed in East Anglia. Miss it terribly and shudder at what it, and the rest of Europe, has become.
“Fall left here last week. The snow has been on the ground since Monday and is here to stay until late April. I’ve woken to single digit temps the last day or two; they’ll have a negative sign soon enough. Call me odd, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Nor would I. Possibly the strangest thing is that as much as I wouldn’t live pretty much anywhere in the North that I used to (Chicago, New Jersey etc.), I do miss the seasons thereof.
I loved the spring: the way that one day it’s brown and ugly after the snow has melted, and a week later the trees are in full bloom and the grass has somehow recovered after being buried in snow for a few months and is now green again; the joy of a warm, occasionally-hot summer when it feels good to be outside and life just seems more worth living after the February-April dreariness; of the fall, where the trees change from uniform green into a kaleidoscope of many colors and the sweaty heat of summer is replaced with cooler temperatures; and finally, that first snowfall, the beauty of the white covering over everything and the incredible hush that falls after the snow has fallen…
I miss it all, terribly.
And yes, I know that raking the leaves is a pain in the ass, that shoveling snow every morning at 6am in sub-freezing temperatures can become tiresome, and that after the snow has more or less melted away in the late winter/early spring that everything looks dirty and ugly.
As the man said: “Show me paradise and I’ll buy us the tickets.”
Lived 40 year in southwest Florida (Cape Coral – Fort Myers) where there are only 2 seasons, hot and hotter. Been here in southe central Indiana for the past 19 years where they have FOUR whole seasons that have their own personalities. Whoa.
We’re slowly sliding toward winter now and I’m looking forward to it. We’re in a heavily wooded acreage and I blow leaves when I feel like it, and today I feel like it. Same with the snow and ice, I deal with them when I feel like it.
We’re both semi-retired and pretty much live as as we feel like it, trying to enjoy life the best we can in spite of all the negativity every where.
The most incredible event(s) in my 2-yr stay in Anchorage was that Spring Day each year when we went from dreary Late Winter, to full blown Spring overnight.
Absolutely mind-blowing as every tree, every bush, and the ground went green the moment the Sun came up!
(mild exaggeration for dramatic effect)
I’m in Calgary Canada and we had an inch of snow yesterday and over night. Not a big deal, it will probably melt, but definitely a sign.
But, the snowbird solution works, even if only for short trip. We avoid the holiday season rush, go in mid January and book flights and accommodation long in advance to get good prices. We never stay more than 3 weeks but that break makes the whole 40 below deal bearable, especially if it happens when we are gone. And if so, we call all our friends and family to chat, I mean gloat.
I think that were I still living in the North, I’d go in late Feb or even early March. The cold is fine in December because you have Christmas to look forward to, but by late February it’s starting to get really old, and a trip to somewhere even marginally warmer would be extremely tempting.
I’ve found that 3 weeks away from home, no matter how much I enjoy the furrin place, is about the longest I can stay away before I start missing the familiar.