Missing the Luxury of Winter

“April is the crudest month … begins “The Waste Land,” one of this century’s most famous poems. T. S. Eliot may be a great poet, but that line tends to puzzle those of us who live in the tundra belt. April cruel? That’s the month we rediscover grass and find that water can be soft and wet again, the month that trees finally remember they’re supposed to have leaves. If you’re talking cruel, what of January or February?

That’s the common northern wisdom, anyway. Having spent the first half of my life in Georgia, and the most recent half in Chicago, I’m unconvinced. We complain about the cold, and talk of winters past in hushed, reproachful tones; but I’m about to conclude we’re bluffing. I think we secretly love the season and feel a twinge of sadness when spring comes.

I’ve noticed, for example, that people seem cheeriest on days most frigid. At bus stops, we actually talk to one another! Granted, we mumble incomprehensibly through breath-frosted scarves, and our conversations encompass only one subject—the cold—but at least we’re talking. Walk into any grocery or hardware store and you can instantly provoke a lively conversation with just four words: “It’s freezing out there!”

“It was so cold in my pantry that the ketchup bottle froze solid.” “Tried to get my dog outside this morning. She took one sniff and made a beeline for the electric blanket.” “I heard the difference between 40 below and 30 below is that your spit freezes before it hits the ground.” That’s the kind of talk you will likely hear in Chicago or International Falls or Bismarck in mid-January.

In winter we have a common enemy. It rearranges our perspectives: newscasters swap stories about the cold for five minutes or so before they get to such “lesser” matters as international conflicts, nuclear disarmament, and world trade. Our real opponent is outside, palpably surrounding us, and we humans are huddled together behind barriers of plaster and brick; and we’re surviving. Together, we are going to beat that enemy. The spirit is eerily atavistic: We are warriors in a cave, trying to work up courage against the herd of mammoths outside.

I heard recently about a poll of senior citizens in London. To the question, “What was the happiest time of your life?” 60 percent answered, “The Blitz.” Every night squadrons of fat Luftwaffe planes would dump tons of explosives on the city, bombing a proud civilization into rubble—and now the victims recall that time with nostalgia! They, too, had a common enemy outside, and they huddled together in dark places, determined to survive.

People used to use a strange, humble expression: they would talk about being at the “mercy” of the elements. With all our technological defenses, we are rarely at their mercy anymore, and rarely humble. Thanks to meteorology, weather has even lost its surprise factor. (Why is it that television weathermen drone on about jet streams and draw arrows all over the globe when all I want to know is what kind of coat to wear tomorrow?)

But every once in a while, in January or February, we get a fine, untamable blast of cold and snow that stops us, literally, in our tracks, and teaches us about “mercy.” Winter, above all, offers us a reminder of creaturehood. Once more we see ourselves as tiny, huddling creatures dependent on each other and on the God who created the awesome universe.

“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways,” said Elihu to Job. “He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’ So that all men he has made may know his work, he stops every man from his labor.” It happens even in a great city like Chicago. On the day of the big blizzard, the trains cease running, cross-country skiers replace cars on the streets, and everyone stops from labor.

One day in February I drove south along Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive toward downtown. The sun was shining brilliantly—oddly, it always does on the coldest days, for it is the cloud cover that holds in the Earth’s heat. On my left, Lake Michigan was deciding whether or not to freeze. Just above the turquoise water line, ice fog was forming, that startling phenomenon in which water, skipping intermediate stages, condenses directly into ice crystals. On my right, Chicago’s skyline was lit by the softened, slanted rays of winter sun.

In a curious sort of way, the whole scene seemed friendly. I couldn’t quite understand why until I noticed the puffs of pure white smoke wafting from the top of each building. It was as if they were breathing. Even concrete and steel had taken on something of an organic quality.

Maybe Eliot was right about April being the crudest month: it puts an end to the subtle delights of winter. I had thoughts along this line as I drove down Lake Shore Drive, until I turned into Lincoln Park. And there I saw some of Chicago’s homeless. As barriers against the cold, they had only a few layers of old newspapers and some plastic bags. They, too, huddled together, but there was little of the joy and camaraderie I had sensed from people at bus stops and in grocery stores. These folks were just trying to stay alive.

It was then I realized that enjoying February, using words like refreshing and invigorating, sensing the friendliness of a man-made redoubt against the elements—these were the greatest of luxuries. It was then I realized another, essential meaning to the word mercy. A sense of creaturehood—huddling together in caves or bomb shelters or Chicago buildings—only produces a feeling like joy if we the creatures show “mercy” to each other. It is a good lesson to remember—in February, April, or any other month.

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