Putting a spring in our step

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/04/2016 (3704 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Weather-wise, Wednesday was not the first beautiful day of the year. But it was, perhaps, one of the first days that invited comment on its beauty. The sun was shining, the sky was blue. Winnipeggers, pale and parka-fatigued, celebrated in all the ways Winnipeggers traditionally do — riding their bikes, enjoying happy hour on a patio, rolling down car windows, prematurely wearing shorts. 

Spring is fickle here, so it makes sense we tend to get a little carpe diem about it. “What a beautiful day,” we say to strangers, once the mercury soars to, like, 12 C. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Of course, we’re not saying what we really mean, which is, “Great work, everyone. We did it. We made it. We survived.” 

And last winter wasn’t even that bad.

April, in Winnipeg, is not a particularly beautiful month. Everything is coated in a layer of dust, making everything seem especially brown and blah. Instead of bright pink cherry blossoms, we get stubborn patches of greying snow that refuse to melt. An otherwise nice breeze results in a face full of road grit. Chip bags and sun-bleached Slurpee cups are snared in leafless hedges.

But it’s beautiful in its own way. The way the ice melts on the river, making ever-changing watercolour paintings. The way the sky seems especially blue. The way people seem lighter and happier, buoyed by double-digit temperatures and the promise of summer. 

There’s a beauty, too, about living somewhere that experiences — fully — four distinct seasons. A few years ago, the husband of a friend of mine was working in Arizona for a few months. Upon his return, he commented that 84 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny every day gets monotonous. Perhaps because that kind of weather — which is, really, an absence of weather — makes everything seem like Groundhog Day. Or perhaps because it’s easy to take it for granted. 

A lot of our civic identity is pinned on weather, in its extremes. Winnipeggers love talking about the weather, sure, and lecturing other cities about weather — “You don’t even know what cold is!” — but more than that, our climate shapes who we are. We’re bonded by it. We commiserate about it. We joke about it. Our winters make us so many things: resilient, creative, depressed. Summer is easy to love in its teasing brevity, with its warm nights and electric thunderstorms. It’s our winters that build character: things one must survive often do.

There’s lots to love about winter, allegedly, as those chipper outdoorsy types who are fond of saying “It’s a dry cold” and “It’s fine if you dress for it” will brightly tell you. That perfect stillness after a snowfall is pretty nice, I guess. So is hoarfrost against a blue sky. 

But perhaps one of the best things about winter is the knowledge that eventually everything will thaw and, when it finally does, we will thaw along with it. 

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @JenZoratti