It is -30 Fahrenheit and a snowstorm is raging. These are conditions when you silently think “this is not a drill” and then (if you’re prepared and this isn’t your first rodeo) go about the humdrum business of living in a brutal environment. Curmudgeon Compound is secure. The pipes are thawed, the lights are on, the driveway is cleared of drifts, and the woodstove is roaring.
The current cold snap is nearly a week old. I’ve barely left the house and have no plans to do more. There are blustering fools who’ll say “-30 ‘aint that bad”. They are wrong.
It’s officially winter; not far away a truck went through the ice. Bummer. Of two occupants, one is among the living and the other is something of a punchline. That was a few days ago. This cold will improve the ice; too late to help for the first explorers of course, but subsequent ice fishermen will surely approve of the updated ice conditions. This is why it’s wise to stay put near the warm fire; possibly have a nip or two of liquor. Don’t play on lakes in -30 blizzards unless you know what you’re doing. Hint: if you die, you didn’t know what you were doing. God gave us January in the north as a mini vacation from the frenzy of warm climes. Here we can hibernate with a good drink and a hot fire. No need to tilt at windmills during a maelstrom.
The extra time at hand became an opportunity. I decided to sift through a dusty old hard drive. I found half a story written in the spring of 2021. I never finished or posted it. As I read it, I remember the winter-weary, Covid stressed, feel of the ebbing winter of 2020-2021. Shall I call it week 52 of a few weeks to flatten the curve. Shall I call it “winter of death Mark 1?” Whatever it was, I was exhausted.
So much happened in the second year of Covid madness. We are pushed and shoved toward the panicked feel of “immediacy”; not by accident, but to make us more pliable. It’s easy to forget this is a multi-year panic now. Each step forward and each step back was treated, at the time, as if it mattered. Yet almost nothing actually changed. Things got so much better. Things got so much worse.
Regardless, in the midst of a society crawling up it’s own ass I sought solace. I had a lovely sailing trip on the cusp of spring. Some of this was typed at the time; the intent was to share the fun. I’m going to fill in the gaps with memory so you get the story too. My recollection might be a bit hazy, but then again what’s the purpose of a bitter winter storm if not to reminisce about springtime past?
Enjoy…
Those kinds of temps will make a believer outta ya. I have personally seen (and have the pics somewhere) the thermometer at my kitchen window reading somewhere in the -65F range. It’s warmed here a bit from a stretch of -35 to -40, so I’m gonna pour a few fingers and revel in the next tale in the ongoing Saga of AC. Lookin’ forward to it!