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May 2009 
What does winter mean for you?
Posted on Dec 21st, 2008
by 
ruth
ruth
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for December 21, 2008:
Winter has taught me the value of opening my eyes and living in REALITY.
I grew up in Southern Ontario where it was possible to wear running shoes all year if one was prepared for the occasional cold soaker. Age 17 and 18 I missed most of two winters travelling and then started university in Montreal
I was angry all that first Montreal winter. Angry at feeling cold, angry at humans in general that they would ever construct a city in such a climate. I did not bring to consciousnes that my own youthful vanity was robbing me of winter wonderland.
A few short years later I was a medical intern living in Ottawa and was doing an elective at a sports medicine clinic in February. I had no car and the buses were a circuitous 60min ride. It was much quicker to walk across frozen windy Dow's lake and suddenly I was old enough to take pride in my sheepskin fuddish hat, balaclava, layered jackets, snow pants, padded paws. I dressed so warmly that I am certain that even at -30 C I could have survived all day asleep in the snow.
My hair was a mess when I got to work.
Now I always wear at least two coats in winter, the outer one being an MEC down parka. I just bought my eldest son a down parka. I had to talk him into it as he was veering toward fashion. But after a few walks between his room near the university and his part time job, he loves it.
The house I moved into 2 weeks ago is a 3min walk from work and a 30second walk from church.
The reality of Ottawa winter is that it is a pristine fairyland for romping and skiing and skating which is frostbite cold, and dangerous for driving: I had to give up speed and vanity and walk/skate/ski in the real world, walk warmly.
:)
I grew up in Southern Ontario where it was possible to wear running shoes all year if one was prepared for the occasional cold soaker. Age 17 and 18 I missed most of two winters travelling and then started university in Montreal
I was angry all that first Montreal winter. Angry at feeling cold, angry at humans in general that they would ever construct a city in such a climate. I did not bring to consciousnes that my own youthful vanity was robbing me of winter wonderland.
A few short years later I was a medical intern living in Ottawa and was doing an elective at a sports medicine clinic in February. I had no car and the buses were a circuitous 60min ride. It was much quicker to walk across frozen windy Dow's lake and suddenly I was old enough to take pride in my sheepskin fuddish hat, balaclava, layered jackets, snow pants, padded paws. I dressed so warmly that I am certain that even at -30 C I could have survived all day asleep in the snow.
My hair was a mess when I got to work.
Now I always wear at least two coats in winter, the outer one being an MEC down parka. I just bought my eldest son a down parka. I had to talk him into it as he was veering toward fashion. But after a few walks between his room near the university and his part time job, he loves it.
The house I moved into 2 weeks ago is a 3min walk from work and a 30second walk from church.
The reality of Ottawa winter is that it is a pristine fairyland for romping and skiing and skating which is frostbite cold, and dangerous for driving: I had to give up speed and vanity and walk/skate/ski in the real world, walk warmly.
:)
Access: Public
What a gorgeous picture! I wonder if I bought I down parka … hmmmm, I dunno, I still might not be as accepting as you. Lovely words to go with the beautiful pic!
xo Ayla
TY Ayla,
The photo is my friend Erika in Gatineau Park on our favourite trail where we have skied every winter for 25 years.
I may not be quite as positive about winter as I was this morning.
I just spent 2 hours helping my son shovel the church steps. I had not eaten breakfast when we went out so famished after physical labour I have retreated home to a bowel of fried pasta and am thinking I might just get out in time to reshovel for when the service is over :)
(Actually, I prefer doing to sitting and I enjoy playing in the snow)
TY again for stopping by
Oh yes, down! I have a full-length down coat. Found it at a Thrift Store. Red with hood, high collar, Zippered and snapped-flapped.
Snugged at the wrists. I always loved Winter but even more so this year.
I’m keeping the temperature low in the house. I wore my coat to bed last night.
A red parka would look brilliant in a snowy day
What kind of dreams does one have in a red parka?
I was touched by yr writing about feeling angry in the cold….I used to get that way when i couldn’t afford heat…i lived in a converted cattle barn one year and i couldn’t get warm at all that winter (1984)..
Of course this was an emotional palimpsest covering despair and despondancy but i only know this intellectually…
Yoga kept me warm but for a few hours.
Thanx for this. jon x
And when you could not afford heat, who were you angry at?
It is like when we hit our elbowfunny bone and have that sudden burst of pain and anger, who are we angry at?
Anger: I never have enough when I am actually being abused or mistreated and so have given leeway to the point of exhaustion and enabling the bad behaviour of others (love discerns when to assist others with their needed growth - love is not being a doormat)
Anger: I have had irrational anger in the face of concrete frustrations and discomforts. Anyone other than me ever come close to tossing a computer out a window? EVERYONE right?
My internal narration muttering stuttering along cold Montreal streets instructs me about how completely useless my own relationship with anger is. I recall stuff like this “Why did the French ever choose this spot to build a city. Surely they felt the extreme cold and had trouble coping with it. Why did they build here then? Why didn’t they move south? If they had not been so stupid I would not be here right now. There would be no city if they had simply listened to their human physiology which informs clearly that this climate is NOT for humans. No one told me that winter is cold to the point of pain and danger. I just assumed if there was a city here, it was actually fit for human habitation. Now I have paid my tuition and I am stuck here in this place that humans should never have built on”
Haha ridiculous stuff like that :)
Nice Jon that you were ‘touched’ by my being angry about the cold.
But in truth, it was all blind vanity.
I could easily have done what JOYOUS did. Gone to a thrift store. In Montreal I could have gone to the Salvation Army and bought second hand sweaters and trousers and scarfs and hats and while no one of them would have been warm, layered on they would have kept me toasty. But I was too vain to buy the warmth I could afford and that never even occurred to me.
We are actually having a “real winter” here in Calgary for a change, and there isn’t a time when I don my new “thinuslated” winter coat and boots (procurred from “Mark’s Work Wearhouse” this year) that I am not eternally grateful for having finally bought them. Most years, one can get by in Calgary without winter boots (providing you are prepared to do some deft puddle-jumping during Chinooks, and some fast-shuffling when everything freezes up again.) This year though, true winter gear is a must. This was the first “White Christmas” we’ve had in quite a while. Winter is not so bad when you’re dressed warmly enough. It makes me grateful to have the means to be able to do so.
Happy New Year (and Happy four or five more months of winter too! ;-)