View from the North 40: Winter brings out the best in me

To know me is to know that I have a contrariness to my nature.

For better or worse. From birth till in death do I part. Some piece of me will yin to another’s yang, will yes because there was a no, will advocate the devil’s side. Yes, it will even prompt me to speak nice of my old nemesis, winter.

I know that sounds like crazy talk from me, the person who once said that winter is a boil on the backside of existence. But I can assure you that, yes, I said nice things, genuinely nice things about winter.

I blame my co-workers.

We have this new guy who moved up here from mild, southerly clime Georgia just in time to meet winter head on. I know, not very bright, but we’re hoping that it’s only a weak sense of self-preservation and not a general lack of intelligence. He still has that new guy freshness about him, kind of a high-gloss, shiny veneer that hides many faults, but we remain, thus far, hopeful.

In his defense, though, he did move from a very humid climate to a dry climate so the cold won’t seem as biting. Still, some of the guys at the office have been regaling him with tales of how horrifying, miserable and life-threatening winter can be.

So, of course, I’m like, sure you can freeze to death fairly quickly in 40-below temps, but open your eyes and you’ll realize that at 40-below those stars really pop in the night sky.

That’s not the only thing beautiful about winter, either.

When the atmospheric conditions are right, all the lights send beams of refracted light straight into the night sky. And the sunrises and sunsets get that gorgeous pastel pink and blue thing going on. You don’t see those things in the summer.

Sometimes the moisture in the air freezes and falls like glitter — fine, glassy glitter.

Sun dogs, I grant you, come in summer, too, but not with the same brilliance as they do in winter. Nothing showcases a sun dog like a winter sky.

Hoar frost. What’s not to like about hoar frost turning even the mundane into a fuzzy, frosted winterland. You know what I mean. People work hard to flock one Christmas tree, but it’s child’s play for Mother Nature. She comes along and with one sweep of a wand — or whatever floats her magic – and you get your whole world flocked. It’s not the fake-y white stuff in a can, either. She goes all out. You can look at her flocking real close and see the crystals. Real ice crystals. Only the best and only in winter.

As I was bragging about these winter jewels, though, I realized that most of them are best seen in the rural areas, away from the lights and conditions of town where the new guy lives, so it’s highly unlikely he’ll see them at their most spectacular. I pulled back the praise a little bit.

I didn’t tell him about hoar frost. It needs wide open spaces where the crystals have room to grow. It’s no sea monkey to be born in a bowl.

Then I kind of felt bad that I already told him about the light beams to the heavens thing. It’s really most spectacular out where street lights don’t grow. And those intensely sub-zero mornings when you drive into town and all the furnaces are billowing white plumes of condensation into the sky, as if town was a white-fluffy-cloud manufacturing plant — you don’t actually see that from in town.

I didn’t tell him about the fluffy cloud thing and the glitter, either. I didn’t want to disappoint him. It’s like setting someone up for failure of the spirit, like telling a child, “I got you the greatest Christmas gift! I gave some kid out in the country the keys to a magic kingdom. Isn’t that awesome?!”

Why would I crush someone in that way? I’m not that cruel. I’m … I’m … I … . Fine, I didn’t want him moving to the country and cluttering up the landscape. OK? You get more yahoos out here, then it just becomes town and they will have ruined everything for me and I will hate winter completely. Whatever.

For better or worse, to know me is to add self-centered to my list of virtues.

(Winter sucks. Go back to town, tell all your friends at [email protected].)