Cold Comforts

Embracing Winter

I wake, heavy-eyed and disoriented. Outside, it is cold and it is dark. Very dark. I glance at my watch. 11:30 a.m. Such is life in Arctic Finland this time of year. The sun will make a cameo appearance for an hour or two, emitting just enough light to turn the sky an eerie grey-blue before disappearing again for another twenty-two hours.

As I step outside, I am met by a cold unlike any I have experienced before. A cold that cuts through my layers and shakes me awake.

My Finnish friend, Mika, warns me not to touch anything metal.

“Why,” I ask?

“Because your skin might stick to it.”

It may seem like another planet, but the Arctic is merely the natural extension of the cold logic of winter. As the days shorten, the list of ways to die grows longer. We shovel. We layer. And we complain.

Winter is the season that gets no respect. An interval between autumn and spring that must be endured. An inconvenience at best. John Updike took an especially dark view of winter. “The cold,” he wrote, “has the philosophical value of reminding us that the universe does not love us.”

Updike is not alone in his disdain for winter. One survey found that two-thirds of Americans prefer hot weather to cold weather and would rather live in a hot place than a cold one.

Not me. I lived in Miami for a few years and that was enough. The heat was brutal and relentless. Sweating that much is not natural. I craved the cold. I craved Duraflames and sweaters and thick, fluffy socks. Most of all, I craved a ready excuse to say no.

Winter is the season for introverts. Unlike spring and summer, winter does not demand that we garden or barbecue or torture ourselves into beach-shape. Winter lets us be. Winter says, “Whoa. Where are you going? It’s cold out there. Stay here where it is warm and safe. People will understand.”

Winter is a pause, a reset. The cold strips the trees, clearcuts the detritus of the previous year, and we can begin again. On a more prosaic level, winter gives us options: you can always add another layer of clothing; you can’t remove a layer of skin.

Winter is more than a counterpoint to summer, the freeze that enables us to appreciate the thaw. It possesses a meaning, and a beauty, all its own. Standing on a frozen lake in northern Finland, I experienced a stillness so pure and full it took my frozen breath away. My reaction is not unique. Arctic explorers, like Admiral Richard Byrd, reported similar experiences:

“Here were the imponderable processes and forces of the cosmos, harmonious and soundless. Harmony, that was it! That was what came out of the silence — a gentle rhythm, the strain of a perfect chord, the music of the spheres, perhaps. It was enough to catch that rhythm, momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man’s oneness with the universe.’"

There are other, surprising benefits to the cold. The happiest nations in the world are not tropical paradises. They are cold, dark places, such as Finland, Denmark and Iceland. Why? I have a theory. I call it the Get-Along-Or-Die Theory. In warm places, life is too easy; your next meal simply falls from a coconut tree. Cooperation with others is optional. Not so in cold places. Everyone must work together to ensure a good harvest or a hearty haul of cod. Or everyone dies. Together.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but interdependence is the mother of affection, and the cold its midwife.

During hot summers, we take everything for granted (with the possible exception of central AC.) In the winter, we take nothing for granted. Every scarf, every hand warmer, every cup of hot chocolate represents a minor miracle. Gratitude is winter’s harvest.

Cold is not merely the absence of heat. It is a presence. It is “the nothing that is,” as Wallace Stevens said in his poem, “The Snowman.”

On warm days, we turn outward and seek adventure. On cold days, we turn inward and seek the warmth of human, or canine, company and the simple pleasures of reading a good book by the light of the fireplace. Even grouchy John Updike acknowledged this. “I like winter,” he wrote, “because it locks me indoors with my books, my word processor, and my clear and brittle thoughts.” Winter, alas, is the season for writers too.

Are you a cold weather or hot weather person? A winter or summer lover? Let me know.