Samhain Winter Moon
A sickle moon, 7 inches of snow, still fresh, -11 on the weather system’s display. Yes. There is a purity in a northern winter, a clarity and a straight-forwardness that I sought out when I moved 44 years ago to Appleton, Wisconsin. Indiana winters could never decide on cold or chill, snow or slush, rain or ice. Walking in January with wet feet through a crunchy mush of water. Well, that was the nadir.
That first winter, 1969, we had several feet of snow and the temperature got down to -20 and stayed there. That was what I wanted, a season not afraid to declare its intentions, to arrive and stay present until time to give way to spring. Since then I’ve lived through many notable winters and I’ve enjoyed all of them.
The motor vehicle has been my only source of displeasure. Streets too narrow, snow and ice too built up, wheels spinning, starters whining and clicking. Speeds well beyond what physics says makes sense. Snowshoes. Yes. Sorels. Yes. Cross-country skis. Yes. Engines and tires and heavy metal. No.
Other than that. What can beat a several day snowstorm with flakes drifting, then coming in on the slant, drifting again. Building up, caressing the landscape until it changes into something altogether new. A newness with curves and sweeps and slopes and fewer barriers and boundaries. And blizzards with the snow coming across the desert expanses like the fabled sand storms of the Sahara.
Even the danger of it. It’s possible to lose your way here in a serious storm, wander off into a field, say, while only 50 feet from home. It happens, not every winter, but often. People leave their cars, try to make it to safety. The cold can kill. -11, which it is right now, is far below survivability for the human body. Trips have a somber side to them, a reasonable caution is necessary.
This is the human animal outside its geographic bounds. We’re not polar bears or even bunnies like I photographed the other afternoon. We’re creatures of the warmer regions where our hairless bodies can thrive with no clothing. None at all. Imagine being a bushman faced with a Minnesota winter night. Or a native American or a pioneer for that matter.
Winter is why we don’t have to keep Minnesota for Minnesotans. In Colorado there are license plates that read Colorado native. I’m sure they’re not, really, but I understand. They don’t want to share. Hawai’i doesn’t encourage immigration either and Portland has a don’t move here campaign.
Our quality of life meets and exceeds all three places but we have this northern temperate climate winter and if you don’t want to live here, it weeds you out. Sends you packing for sunnier places. And that’s ok. Makes sure if you’re here, for the most part, you’re here because you want to be.
