Chilling Inexperience 1/21/2024

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Winter is not something we Southerners are particularly good at.  Now, don’t get me wrong, many of us really enjoy it.  I myself am a big fan, and if there was some way we could manage to maintain foliage on the trees AND have the season I would adore it since lack of greenery (other than pines which I loathe) is really my only true qualm with it. I enjoy the cold weather that makes you want to snuggle under blankets and wear fuzzy things.  I do however know that there is a fair amount of my brethren in these parts that abhor this season. I suppose I get it considering we are spoiled rotten with excessive amounts of warmth here so there are many who find any straying from that standard very disconcerting.  I just don’t like being hot so the whole summer excitement crowd is just not a group that I can get behind.  Not to mention, there is not a shadow of a doubt that I look infinitely better in far more clothing than less clothing so, cooler temperatures are pivotal for that. It’s for the betterment of humanity really.

But we really don’t know what to do with winter.  While other places with traditional seasons can manage just fine, if we have extreme cold, we panic.  If we have even the most minimal dusting of snow, we panic.  And when I say minimal, I am talking about amounts that would make anyone, likely north of Tennessee cackle in laughter like a rabid hyena at our response. We don’t even know how to drive in mere dustings. We may, or may not, even know how to drive in extreme cold.  You’d think the temperature wouldn’t that much impact our abilities but it’s just so foreign even our most basic skills are tested. There could be ice somewhere. Who knows?  There may have been a puddle and for all we know it has turned into black ice that has overtaken the entire interstate system and, quite frankly, we’re all doomed. I sound as though I am being dramatic but, the thing is, we have time and time again proven that I am not.  If you could see a record of all the wrecks caused by the tiniest amount of snow, you would know.  We don’t know how to function in such circumstances. It is the equivalent of asking a yeti to navigate a heat wave. It’s just not something for which we are equipped.   We truly aren’t overly dramatic, at least not in this one instance.

Just earlier this week I was noting the disconcerting stillness outside. Everyone has heard of the lovely stillness during snowfall and the like. It was certainly cold enough for snow on that day, (it got roughly 4 degrees above freezing for the high which is not something we have the psychological capacity to deal with in these parts).  But my area was robbed of snow that day. We just had a brutal cold, and I noticed it was so terribly quiet.  It was, if I’m honest, a little scary. There were no birds, not even the local dog having a bark. It was eerily silent. Without snow the stillness isn’t so much a peaceful retreat as it is unsettling.  I suppose the entire out of doors was in shock at the extremeness of it all. I like the tranquility of it, but I honestly could have done without the spooky.

My husband is one of those people mostly unaffected by cold until it is to the point that frostbite is a real possibility. Even then it may or may not faze him.  Lately he has been slightly, and I do mean slightly, less prone to dressing like the dead of summer even when it’s cold, but it isn’t a guarantee. He prefers shorts to pants, much to my chagrin, and will wear them until freeze warnings are issued. Even then, he may still. He’s a special one that one.  Our daughter is warm natured as well but has no qualms putting on something soft and cuddly, especially if said item is hot pink and has fur, (giving a description of the new winter coat she just got). Our cat is fine with a visit to the back patio in the cold. He may not stay super long, but he has no complaints. Our dog, however, is adamantly opposed to being chilly. On a morning she knows she has to go out in the frost to handle her business, there have been times she has hidden or, when I approach to literally carry her outside, she will roll over on her back like a dead bug. I am not sure why she feels that this will convince me that she should be allowed to stay in, but she does do it very fervently and looks rather expectantly, with her side-eye, like it will work.  It doesn’t, but it is very cute.

As I am finishing this writing, the forecast is telling me that the temperatures are going to plummet again tonight. By the way, I like the word plummet. I’ve been seeing it a lot in our weather lately and well, I feel that it is one example of the English language actually describing something accurately. But I digress.  The temperature tonight will be fifteen or so degrees below freezing, and I believe it is supposed to be rather windy. For me and people here where I am, it may as well be the surface of Pluto because we would know about as well how to deal with it. So, tonight we’ll bundle up and tomorrow we won’t leave the house, thank Heaven we don’t have to work.  The cat will snooze on the couch and the dog will find any available blanket and plant herself beneath it. And then, on those unfortunate occasions when the outside must be visited, there will be layers, and, if I had to guess, a small, chocolate-furred, canine dead bug. Happy Winter my dears!