I have very mixed feelings about the weather these days. I’m one of those people who treasures jacket-weather but shudders a bit at the anticipation of winter.
In my mind, a jacket or sweater completes an outfit. I feel under-dressed all summer long without a jacket. But, coat, scarf, glove-weather is just too much stuff to juggle and feels a tad stifling.
I guess I’m just a weather-Goldilocks. My husband is too. Is it ever just, right?
I seem to always be rushing my husband through the seasons. He lallygags, procrastinates, dawdles, and postpones winterizing, in my opinion.
I presume that the feeling is, if you put off preparing for winter, maybe it won’t arrive any time soon. I personally don’t hate winter but there is an expiration date on my patience with it and if its arrival should be delayed, I’d be okay with that.
I find that with age, I’m not as thrilled with the exercise of shoveling snow as in times past. It used to be that snow-shoveling for me was just another form of winter cardio. However, the last year or so, my body has rebelled to this form of activity, much preferring a gentler, prolonged walk, for its fitness.
The “hard work” of stacking fire wood, push-mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow seem to have become less rewarding both physically and emotionally than even a couple of years ago. Apparently, there is a difference between work and exercise; at least my body has deemed it so.
So, back to the concept of jacket-weather. When a light jacket is just the right outdoor apparel, I can be said to “love this weather.” I would be happy as a clam, tickled pink, and as satisfied as a pig in mud, if the temps would hang around in the mid-sixties and the humidity would stay low, all year.
A tree-hugger in every sense of the word, I equate Autumn with falling and fallen leaves. I grew up jumping into massive piles of leaves and would do so now if, well, you know why I can’t do that now. But I love the look of yellow, red, orange and brown leaves piling up all on their own with the assistance of hefty breezes now and then.
I can let my hair down in Fall weather, literally. And, I guess this weather frees me to also figuratively let my hair down and not do the “uptight” up-do that controls the frizz and the extreme effects of summer weather. Fall weather means liberty, to this individual.
But winterizing brings with it an altogether new tension of preparedness. My spouse particularly doesn’t love turning off the outside water faucets. Draining the line feels way too permanent to him. He washes the car at home about twice a year but he wants to be able to do so whenever he wants to and somehow flipping that lever and opening the faucets is a step too far for him.
All too often we’ve had to cope with the unpleasant alternative to winterizing the outdoor faucets, burst water pipes in the garage. Accordingly, winterizing has become preferred over the alternative.
We also clean out my husband’s man-shed twice a year. Among other things, this involves transitioning some heavy equipment such as a log splitter, mowers, spreaders, various saws, and such. This year after he and our grandson split an epic amount of firewood, he was delighted to give the log splitter a rest and put it away. In exchange, he retrieved from hiding, his “man-shed heater” to prepare for his greatly anticipated hours of winter-contemplation, rest and shed-solitude.
The deck umbrella has gone into storage and the chair and table covers have been unearthed, much to hubby’s chagrin. He wants to be able to sit out there in fifty-degree weather, but never will, remember that shed heater? He gets cold nowadays when he used to wear short sleeved T-shirts all year long.
For many people, winter is bleak and dark. Don’t get me started on why Congress tabled a bill to leave us in Daylight Savings Time all year. Instead, we’re back to Standard Time with its darkness at five o’clock in the afternoon. At least with DST we felt alive, not to mention awake, until six o’clock.
Maybe it’s the thought of winterizing and the nostalgia of summers past that initiates a subtle dread in those of us of a certain age who are embarking on the winter of our lives. Poets have often opined about the beauty of winter.
Among my favorite “winterisms” are these from Naturalist and Philosopher, Henry David Thoreau:
“Summer is gone with all its infinite wealth, and still nature is genial to man. Though he no longer bathes in the stream, or reclines on the bank, or plucks berries on the hills, still he beholds the same inaccessible beauty around him.” – November 22, 1860
“The dry grasses are not dead for me. A beautiful form has as much life at one season as another.” November 11, 1850
“Live in each season as it passes, breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” August 23, 1853
“Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle.” October 219, 1858
So, don’t be afraid to winterize. Count the days if you have to, but spring is surely to come in due time.