correspondence 10/12/06: snow!

Dear, Dear Friend,

Knowing my tendencies toward extended absences followed by extensive - exhaustive, probably - communiqués, you should understand how concerned I was about having *anything* at all to write about this soon after that last edition I sent you. This is your chance to quietly halt the proceedings and pretend you haven’t opened this letter yet; I’ve found plenty to write about this morning.

The drops of condensation are running in pairs down my front window now, so if I look through their streaks, or up to the top of the window, I’ve got a fair view of the snow stubbornly hanging on to our three tall pines. Snow. It’s not halfway through October and for a brief moment this morning it was blustering down for keeps. The sun’s back now, and it’s quickly sweeping up the dust, but snow!
And I know I’ll end up talking this to death. At least, maybe, come with me into November. Through Thanksgiving. Then, when I’ve got to wear four layers for my daily run, we can talk about my lunacy. Today I’ve got something important to admit.
I can’t get by the fact that I’ve come back to my home, and that my home is a frontier. Last year I realized I was a midwest boy, that I love having no a/c in my car, winter, girls bundled up in coats and boots, getting to March and thinking about how many crappy days I survived. This year I’m realizing what that means. That ‘midwest’ word.
I can’t stop thinking about why we here in Michigan and Ohio have gotten to keep that moniker. There’s that whole “aren’t all those square states west of the middle the midwest?” thing, but maybe no. These places, in what really should be thought of as the north, have kept their harshness. Their wild. Ohio was one big stretch of forest. (Michigan still is) Now we have much nicer cabins, but we still retreat for them every year at this time. Wild. Not all the time, and not lacking-electricity- or toilet-wild, but their bottom line of grave necessity for the company of others. And also long stretches of slowing-down, internal quiet. New England has winter too. I think of rocks and the sea and crabs and Boston-type things. Red. All those snowy mountains out west are light blue and fresh and yup. The midwest means dark grey, street slush, people who own snowmobiles as a viable means of transportation. Chin stubble.
And we’re all suffering through and damn do I become a blob when the sun hasn’t been out for six weeks. But there’s some deep animal recognition of that whole decay thing I was talking about, and it must give itself away by pheromones (seeing as how mosquitos can figure out who’s more or less stressed out and make their meal accordingly, I don’t see why there can’t be a specific winter-stress pheromone, too) because I think it’s the most communal time of year.
That’s why I love everyone all bundled up. It’s nudity of a different type: “here I am. I need this many clothes to stay alive today.” (Of course, I suspect there’s also something of an extension of the whole idea of lingerie - hey, the more clothes you’re wearing the more there is to take off, and the better the surprise will be when I get there! sort of thing, but let’s just keep this in general terms, okay?) We all get a swift kick come (apparently) mid-October and have no choice but to admit our remaining animal nature: we *do* have bodies, they’re *not* just decorative, I *won’t* be able to get a job, make friends, spend money, enjoy Carlo Rossi if I allow mine to become much less than 98.6 degrees.
The snow’s gone now, just an eyelid lifted at the still-dark morning, assuring itself that it’s day is coming soon and all is as expected, then closed again. For now. But the wind chill is 29 degrees and the bicyclists passing by today are wearing puffy winter coats. The mail was slow in coming. It’s getting quiet and yellow. And there’s more on the way this evening.

As ever,

T