Pro Winter Propaganda

A time to be cozy and lazy

We got hit kinda hard, kinda early with a good amount of snow here in the upper Midwest. It has warmed up a little bit now. And the sidewalks are clear. Which I gotta admit is nice. It can get to be intense, snow.

I know some people LOVE to complain about snow. These people have always mystified me. Ever since I was a kid, I could not understand it. I thought, “these people are allergic to joy and fun!”

In fairness, I have to admit, there are two kinds of snow: one good, and one bad. The bad kind of snow is tiny and hard, like tiny clumps of ice. And it comes down sideways and hits you in the face and it hurts. That kind of snow is a huge jerk face and can go to hell.

But then there’s the second kind of snow. The good kind of snow, the snowflakes all clump together and float down slowly. It feels like you’re in a snow globe. It is actually too pretty. I don’t know how you could hate this kind of snow. These people should be condemned imo.

There’s something about the first snow every year that really gets me. If this second kind of snow is coming down when you happen to be in a very cozy place OH MY GOD. If it also happens to be dusk! Or it is falling near street lights. I don’t see how you could not be charmed out of your pants.

You can walk around the neighborhood and it is transformed. Like a storybook version of a neighborhood. It feels different, it sounds different.

I posted something about the Midwest being cool and underrated on Substack notes recently and everyone started yelling at me. To the point where I was like, oh wow people REALLY hate winter. And I admit, at times it can be difficult/awful.

My daughter brought home some disease from third grade this week that almost killed me, I swear to God. School winter diseases are unbelievably powerful. It was like the demon monster in Stranger Things put its suction to my face, this disease. It brought me to my knees.

HOWEVER, I feel like if winter were the kind of thing that you had to buy and people bragged about on Instagram, it would be different. If people were like “look I’m standing in a snowy forest and little diamonds are falling all around me and the air is crisp and minty,” but only rich people could afford it, everyone would be shelling out $1 million to experience winter.

The experience of winter really does vary, depending on what you’re doing and the particular weather. The goated winter weather is snowy, or snow on the ground, not windy, and sunny and around 32 degrees (so the snow is not melting). My kids and I have had the good fortune to go sledding with friends in that exact weather two years in a row and it is quite magical.

Even just a nice long solo walk in the snow can be pretty incredible I find. I don’t know if these photos do it any justice, but the muted winter color palette, it’s kind of drab admittedly. But also charming AF. Like a Wes Anderson filter over the world.

The secret to enjoying winter is you have to gear up and go outside. This is the middle aged man in me, but one annoying thing cyclists say in the midwest is that “there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing.” It’s deeply annoying and I apologize to all of you for saying that, but those old guys kind of have a point.

Ever since I was a kid, I have had a fascination with the culture around winter sports, like hockey. If you are from the kind of place where people played that OUTSIDE on LAKES and that kind of thing, I would be so jealous. I heard there are places in Canada now where you can ICE SKATE on a TRAIL through the WOODS. And I am just jealous. There’s a place in Quebec where you can do this called the “Enchanted Forest” and I hope to experience it some day.

But in the meantime, there’s a little more approachable example for me in Toledo, Ohio, the Metroparks just built a ice skating trail called “the ribbon.” And they will rent you skates.

I genuinely think this is one of the most exciting public space investments in the Midwest made in a long time. I’ve done it on roller skates in the summer but haven’t had a chance to try it out in the winter yet.

When I was a little girl, I used to buy used ice skates at Play it Again Sports every year and skate on my friend’s creek. One year, there was a hard rain that froze quickly, and we could ice skate over the surface of the grass. My bestie and I we ice skated all over the neighborhood including down this huge hill. It was extremely dangerous and extremely awesome and I have never forgotten it.

Anyway, when I was glazing the Midwest on Substack notes, all these Sun Belt people came out of the wood work and said — if you can BELIEVE THIS — they LIKE having perfect weather every day. I said “isn’t it like over 100 degrees every day for four months?” They said that doesn’t bother them but they HATE, HATE, HATE winter.

They said living in a warm places changes their whole life and they’re a lot more active. I was honestly skeptical. We are a nation of lazy people, pretty sure. If it’s sunny and nice every day, when do you lay around and read and nap? We have a whole season for that in the Midwest! A season for resting, the more I think about it that way, the more I like it.

This year I’ve even gotten pretty into Christmas stuff. It’s never been my favorite holiday. It genuinely is a lot of pressure on parents and moms in particular, although my husband does a lot of the heavy lifting with gifts etc. Here’s what I love about Christmas though and why I think so many people are so into this holiday.

I drug my whole family recently to see the Cleveland Orchestra. They do shows where they perform the score with movies and we went to see the original Grinch with Jim Carey, the live action one. My family, we don’t go to church, which is more my husband’s decision than mine. But this time of year, I still feel this very deep need to go into a building with great acoustics, that has a sacred vibe to it. Candles would be great but low lights of any kind will do just fine. And I need to gather with people and either sing or hear music performed. And if it’s classical or folk music, all the better.

Humans evolved doing this for millennial this time of year pretty sure, gathering together, creating a little light and warmth and music. It’s pretty important for our survival — all our rituals that we evolved this way are I think. Even just having a tree full of little lights in your house this time of year, when it’s so dark. It really changes the mood, brightens everything and adds a beauty to ordinary life.

We need this rituals, I think, very much to ward off the kind of sadness and depression that can come at this time of year. It is a time of year where people are in danger of falling into despair. And so we need to get together, eat and drink and sing or whatever. And our ancestors, and our grandmothers, they understood the dire importance of this.

You can find this mood of winter magic in an incensed cathedral with an organ. But I also like the version you can find in these storybooks where woodland creatures all get together in the winter and have parties. The Celestial Seasonings bear has been trading on this image forever.

My favorite depiction is this one below from a book called “The Bear Snores On.”

Pretty much anything you read that is set in the past and in winter, like right now my daughter and I just started Little Women, makes you realize how easy we have it now winter wise. The image of a family sitting around a stove with the wood crackling, they’re sewing or whatever. It does seem very cozy.

I got a chance to teach a writing course over the last year. And I used the classic “On Writing Well” as a guide. That guide is all about efficiency of words and clarity of language.

And I think a master class great writing is this song:

Silent night

Holy night

All is calm

All is bright

Round yon virgin

Mother and child

Holy infant so

Tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

I don’t think a better set of lyrics has ever been written. Can you imagine creating a certain mood with so few words?!

Peace, calm and quiet, more and more those ideals appeal to me. I hope you all get that feeling this Christmas and winter, whatever you celebrate.