As readers of this blog already know, I feign the endurance required to survive a Minnesota winter. We moved here to escape west coast urban sprawl, but we were unprepared for the challenges of mid-continental life. Twenty years later I still consider myself a foreigner in this place. I lack the childhood connections that bind me to a community, and have no deep seeded memories of fun in the cold. To this day, Minnesota is enigmatic to me, and I am an enigma to it. So, I fake it. Like the lover who fakes “it” for her love, I fake my pleasure for sub-arctic walks, frigid temperatures, and making art when it hurts. I say that I enjoy short days, blistering winds, and winter photography, but I lie in order to fool myself. I lie to pass the time.
Fortunately for me, winter is not a circle that lacks a discrete beginning or end, it is a vector. It is initiated on the solstice and points to the equinox. It is spring today and it rained. I walked Sequoia and stepped on earthworms slithering across the asphalt. As I smashed these writhing exotics with my sandaled feet, I listened to the bluebirds calling to future mates and watched a heron fly overhead. While it may snow tomorrow, it is April 2nd today, and I now know that the snow will melt.
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