The Deepest, Darkest Time
Never mind what they say about the holidays being the toughest time for depression, etc. February wins that contest, hands down.
Here in the heart of the west, I’m willing to stick my neck out and say that Albertans complain more about the weather than people in Toronto and elsewhere in southern Ontario, and that’s saying something. Round about mid-January, when temperatures first start to creep about -25C, you start hearing people say things like “Oh, I hope this is it. I hope Spring is on its way.” And the more you want to smack them upside the head and say “look at the calendar”, the more they seem to say it. Despite the fact that the days are noticably longer this time of year, people are still, well, dark. They’re fed up, they want spring, and they mutter words like “Mexico” and “Hawaii” with the same wild abandon that Ontarians talk about Cuba and the Dominican (doesn’t anybody go for a nice, simple holiday to Florida anymore?). Despite the fact that they have more of it than other parts of the country, Albertans seem to hate winter. They’re just plain miserable.
Me? I’m okay. It’s the people around me who are getting on my nerves.
Winter has never really bothered me. Driving in it is hell, but everything else about it is just fine, thank you very much. I’ve discovered a rather weird streak in me that embraces the cold weather. While I don’t ski and despise the ice whether in boots or in blades, I see the colder months as a challenge. I walk more in the cold than I do in the summer; I love the whole exercise of pulling the toque down to here and the scarf up to there and venturing out. Heck, I can even joke with friends about which body parts went numb on the way to here or there.
Winter is okay. Really.
I know that I’ll never change people’s opinions, so I’ll just let them go. Winter will be gone soon enough, the trees will bud, and before you know it, we’ll start having those 25-degree-plus days that never end, and the moaning will start about how bloody hot it is.
Canada: It’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too wet, it’s too dry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
