all things counter

#17

16 Feb 2025

Dear Shera,

I love hearing about your weather in Tanzania. I’d read a whole book of letters about the weather. Would you? It’s so varied! There are so many fine distinctions and combinations. When I lived in the desert it was less so, but I still remember my celebratory act of donning a hoodie as Thanksgiving approached, making it the holiday that sparks my favorite time of year. I still wore flipflops all the livelong day, but by golly I’d relish that hoodie with every fiber of my being!

Despite the illness that unfailingly descended with the rainy season every February in that wilderness, I craved its cool relief. Only in my late 20s was I finally sent to an allergist to learn that I suffered from a severe dust mite allergy. The mites do not drink and are activated by humidity, so damp places like England are especially prone year round, which I happily endure each time I hop across the pond.

In Bakersfield overcast days felt like a blissful reprieve from endless summer. The rather pathetic, occasional thunder murmured of a better country, a better country than the concrete wasteland I itched to escape. I easily overheat, besides, and do not love hot weather, which has made it hard for me to empathize with most of the world most of my life. Instead, I fritter away psychic energy needlessly mourning for those deprivated climates where it is always Christmas and never winter.

Needlessly, because I now live in Minnesota, where it feels like 20 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) today.

an unsual midwinter this year

The actual temperature is 5 degrees above zero, but we are nonchalant about windchill here on the prairie. A few winters ago, when I had just been introduced to the polar vortex, “real feel” dropped to negative 68, though thermometers still registered a balmy minus 40. (The point at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales align.) For context: on Mars it hovers around -29 most days. Humidity in fact makes a great difference to our perceptions, as does light. Few thrill at the onset of soaring heat indexes or stinging wet wintry blasts. But for me, the latter lavishes the coziest of indoor alternatives and the comfiest of clothing. Peacoats and plaid flannels, fleece and goose down and thermal layers. Knit sweaters, felted mittens, smartwool socks. I exchange my plain suede moccasins for sheepskin-lined slipper moccasins. Stocking hats and scarves and ski masks swaddle me from the shoulders up. What could be more cuddly than being tucked under a weighted blanket? Piled with a purring cat or sleeping newborn? Sipping steaming mugs of cider or foamy stout? I welcome summer’s lengthening rays and swelling greens, but would it be half so lovely if there were nothing to contrast it with—to teach us longing?

A long stretch of snowlessness recently ended, and what struck me most was how bright it is now at night again. Moonlight splashed over every frosted bough and berm sets the shadow aglow. Silvery phosphorescence casts a spell out the window while golden flames of a merry hearthfire and cheery candlelight kindle warmth indoors. Without winter, what a wealth of plants requiring dormancy would be lost. Lacking snow and ice we couldn’t know sledding or skating. Maple syrup wouldn’t run. I begrudge no one their own need for sunshine. I will take it too, in moderation, but please don’t remove my wondrous wintertime from me. Tell me about your weather though.

A video from 2/24/2019: