Preamble - A necessary evil
A bit of necessary housekeeping before we start... Writing for any reader other than oneself is an act of sheer arrogance. The writer is, in effect, saying "
Hey, world, shut up and read this because I have something to say that you need to know!". Making such demands of any person's time and attention is usually a bit presumptuous, to say the least. To soften this arrogance a bit, a wee dram of humility is called for. So, the entries in this blog will be
essays. The word "essay" is partly derived from the medieval French "assay", meaning "to test, to try, to attempt". Therefore, this blog will be an attempt at saying something that someone somewhere might find useful or at least mildly amusing. And, as with any saunter into the unproven, there will be failures and for these I ask your forbearance in advance. You, dear Reader, are therefore welcome to peruse this as you will, taking what you find worthy and discarding the rest.
So what am I going to be on about, then? It's no accident that I've
begun this on December 22, the day after the longest night of this year,
for I wish to ruminate about the seasons as they pass. More
specifically, I want to explore on a weekly basis how I, as a modern middle class
American, experience the seasons and observe their effects on others
around me. Is it even possible anymore for moderns to directly
experience the seasons themselves in a way approximating the experience
of our forebearers? Or are we now so divorced from our "natural
environment" that we are doomed to never encounter it except via some
kind of commoditized mediation? Of course, this blog will also go completely off this rail at times (hopefully in a good way) but my main concern is to provide loose meditations on the seasons as they happen.
My status as a life-long Chicagoan means I will described the seasons of the northerly part of the northern hemisphere. Winter, spring, summer, fall. That's it. None of my seasons will start with the word "monsoon", for example. The mistral does not appear here and neither, thank heavens, do tsunamis, sandstorms or sharknadoes.
Right, then. Sorted. On we go...
Igne levatus hyems
"Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind,
Thou art not so unkind, as Man's Ingratitude..."
- William Shakespeare, As You Like It
How many of us like winter? I mean really truly value it and enjoy it? And by "winter", I mean all of it, not just the various year-end holidays as it begins in earnest. I'm talking coldest, grey-brownest February here. I know I'm not a big fan of the daily shock of frigid air I get each morning when I open the door to take my dogs out for their morning walkies. Well, we're not alone in our ingratitude to this most disliked season.
Medieval Europeans hated winter. Native Americans reckoned a person's age by how many winters he or she had survived. Once we rid ourselves of much romantic nonsense about what winter was like for most people back in the day, we can begin to understand their view. Welcome to their world...
Cozy, n'est-ce pas?
It's no wonder they feared winter as a time of cold, hunger, disease and darkness. They detested it in ways most of us can scarcely imagine anymore. And they did so because they were far closer to it than we are today. We have literally insulated ourselves against it in too many ways to count. What was for our ancestors a time of grave danger and privation has become a mere inconvenience to us. And this is not a Bad Thing.
At this darkest time of the year, I am reminded that most of us are no longer as limited by the presence or absence of light. We may still move about relatively freely even in times of great snowfall. We no longer shiver in our dwellings. Our diet is no longer utterly dependent on the harvest or the hunt and we can eat bananas and oranges and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats even in the coldest weather. Where they were concerned about starvation and keeping enough wood on
hand to fuel their fires to avoid freezing, we bitch about our flights
being delayed due to snow. Even though we are still deprived of the colorful birds and flowers of spring and summer, we are freer to appreciate the subtle aesthetics of winter - the beauty of the snow laden trees, the blanket of white on rolling hills, the flash of red on a cardinal in flight, etc. - since it is not so successful in its attempts to kill us off. One can go on but the point is clear.
And yet, perhaps in our rush to comfort, we're missing something. As conservatism at its best (not the radical anti-intellectual political garbage that passes itself off as conservatism these days) reminds us, there is also a price to be paid for even the most beneficial progress. Along with the horrors of winter, we've jettisoned much of the enjoyment of it as well. Again, I'm not talking about our Christmas and New Years celebrations which would be mostly unrecognizable to medieval people but the pleasures directly attributable to the facts of winter itself - cold, snow, early darkness, etc. Even pre-modern man still took time out for a bit of frivolity in winter.
I haven't had a good snowball fight in ages. My neighbors can consider themselves warned.*
When is the last time you took a long walk in a forest covered in snow? Or even your neighborhood? Sorry, running out for groceries doesn't count, especially if you drove there. Granted, really experiencing a walk in a quiet woods and paying attention to what is there - animal tracks, plants, the sounds of the few remaining birds, etc. - is almost impossible for people in a large city and its suburbs. Even in the forest preserves, the sound of cars on a distant highway is ever-present as is the glow of light pollution at night.
We have, for the most part, lost access to the joys of a warm fire. There is a (theoretically) working fireplace in my house and after goodness knows how many years I've never had the system properly cleaned and examined so I can use it without making everything inside smoke flavored. It's a pity because I have once or twice had the satisfaction of warming myself to a fire after a day spent out stomping about in the freezing cold and few things can compare to it. One of the most common motifs in medieval art concerning winter was the joy of warming oneself in front of a blazing hearth. Various 'Books of Hours' featured this simple joy in either January or February.
How many of us can really savor such a warmth as this and drain it to it last dregs in these days of endlessly moderated temperatures?
Heated spiced red wine known as gluhwein or glog just can't be relished as much when you've come indoors from a nice heated car after a trip to a nice heated store or movie theater. As a bonus, heated alcohol gets you lit more quickly!
Even the darkness associated with short days has been all but eliminated by electricity, robbing us of time to turn inward and reflect, even at New Years. And for dazzling urbanites such as myself, light pollution has even obliterated our view of the stars.
Instead, with what have we replaced the raw sensation of winter besides "seasonal affect disorder"? Snow globes? Pine scented candles? "Winter Festivals" at our schools so kids don't completely forget what winter is?
So, perhaps we can do a better job of using our technological and organizational advantages to truly experience winter in most of its aspects. Instead of trying to distract ourselves from the "tedium" of winter by endless shopping or sitting in front of a computer reading this blog, maybe we can embrace the features of the season, no matter how temporarily discomfiting.
"If
the October days were a cordial like the sub-acids of fruit, these are a
tonic like the wine of iron. Drink deep or be careful how you taste
this December vintage. The first sip may chill, but a full draught warms
and invigorates." - John Burroughs, "Winter Sunshine"
Now to find the number of a good chimney sweep...
*Kidding! Maybe...
