Midwest Winter

A year ago, after returning to college in Illinois from a month-long break, I experienced something for the first time that I hadn’t even known was possible. I walked outside into a bitterly cold day—the coldest temperature I had ever been exposed to—and within about thirty seconds, I felt my nose hairs tingling. TMI, but I thought I had really bad boogers or something and decided I would find the first bathroom to blow my nose in. But once I was inside, cutting through the science building on my way to class, the weird, crusty feeling in my nose dissolved. So maybe I didn’t have boogers hanging out my nose. I walked back outside into the cold, and within seconds, felt the same discomfort. The windchill that day was something like -30ºF, and after experiencing the same thing the next day, which was equally as cold, I realized that I didn’t need to blow my nose. It was just so cold that the inside of my nose was actively freezing.

And now, in the middle of January in Chicagoland, it’s once again that cold. The high today is 1º (my phone is telling me it’s currently -7º). The college is running shuttles to off-campus students because it’s dangerous to be outside for too long. I get a headache if I’m outside for more than thirty seconds, like my brain is condensing into an ice cube. When I told people in Raleigh that I was going to college in Wheaton, they said I would need a coat. I knew it would be cold, but I didn’t know negative temperatures were even possible south of Minnesota. Yes, it’s chilly, to say the least.

I’m not using this post to complain, I promise. In fact, I’m going to do the opposite, even though I really do hate the cold. But winter has taught me how much more warmth and joy can be found when you have to look a little harder for it.

A year ago, when I saw on the forecast that the high the next day was -1º, I very nearly broke down crying. What would that even feel like? How would I even walk eight minutes to class? Would I ever be warm again? Instead, I wrote a short story where the plot was just “girl is cold.” (You can read it here if you’d like.) And when I walked out to face the cold and felt my nose hairs freezing, it wasn’t so scary. You really just put on a hat and scarf and don’t think about it. Life goes on. (Funnily enough, as I wrote that sentence, I just heard a girl on my hall yell “It’s so cold!!!”)

We do complain to each other about how cold it is. But the complaining only lasts about thirty seconds. Then we go on talking about our days or our classes or the funny dreams we had or whatever else college girls talk about. The cold is just there, outside, and while it can be a safety concern, winter can’t freeze everything. I still laugh with my friends and listen to good music and go to class and sometimes resort to reading a summer romance book just to feel warm inside (currently halfway through Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation). Life just does go on.

That’s not to say that the only way to survive winter is just that: to merely survive it. Winter can be beautiful. The world is dead and asleep, but it’s not so bad. The cold becomes laughable. And weirdly, it’s something everyone in the state shares in common. The random senior I’ve never met but awkwardly say hello to? She’s cold. The cashier at Trader Joe’s? He’s cold. The people sleeping on the train ride to Chicago? Cold. We’re all just people on the verge of becoming popsicles, and we get to smile at each other like the cold is some inside joke that we share. As I write this, I really am coming to believe that the cold—at least in Chicagoland—is something that brings friends and strangers closer together. In a tumultuous time when it seems like everyone is divided by politics and absorbed in their phones, winter is something that we all have to endure. Instead of saying “Goodbye,” we say “Stay warm.” For some reason, the latter sounds more loving.

Anyway, I can stop being sappy now. Spring is and always has been my favorite season. I love flowers and birdsong and that first day in March or April when it’s warm enough to wear a dress. The problem is that in the Midwest, spring is usually only a tease. It can be sixty degrees for a week and then snow the next. I think I am a much happier person in springtime (so happy and skippy that it definitely gets annoying), but maybe that’s only because of winter. I don’t think I would love spring so much if winter didn’t exist… especially the Midwest winter. Spring feels like a breath of fresh air, but only because the winter air will freeze your snot. To quote my little winter short story, “Without Winter, hugs would be sweaty and uncomfortable, and soup would rot in the sun.” So in short, I’m warming up to the cold weather. I still desperately hold onto the faith that spring will come, but I guess winter isn’t all that bad, either.