A January Point of View

Heavy coats, slushy streets, and bitter wind; days like these make you wish you were mowing the lawn.

I miss summer. I miss everything about it. I miss the sun, the warm weather, wearing light clothes, sitting with my wife in the Muskoka chairs behind our house in Poplar Hill. Heck, at this point I even miss mowing the lawn. I miss summer because winter has us by the throat now. To paraphrase an obscure Canadian band, nothing matters but the summer, from a January point of view. This is the time of year when I get a bad case of cabin fever.

You guessed it – I'm not a winter person. I don't care for the snow and the slush. And the wind ... the wind is the worst. I went for a walk around the neighbourhood one day this week and it just blew right through me, chilling me to the core. It was awful.

It sometimes feels like this country has a split personality. Or maybe a better way to put it is that Canada seems to be two different worlds: a summer planet and a winter planet. I only belong on one of them.

To a summer person like me, winter is a kind of prison. Winter means having to wear a heavy coat. It means putting on boots. It means a scarf, a toque and gloves. Did I mention the long underwear?

In summer, you don't feel so bulky, so encumbered. You're free to go where you please whenever you like, especially since there are no snowdrifts blocking the roads. No ice.

In summer, it feels like the sun is shining when I go to bed, and it's shining when I wake up. The world is truly alive; the trees in our yard are bursting with leaves, flowers are blooming, and the buzz of lawn mowers – mixed with the song of the cicadas – fills the air. When I walk along the country roads near our house, grasshoppers and crickets chirp their greetings. I can't help but feel free of my cares. The weight of the world isn't pinning me down.

Summer offers other simple delights. Eating dinner with my wife outside on the picnic table. Sleeping blanketless. Raspberry lemonade. Trips to the Pinery. Hanging out with friends on one of London's many patio bars. Did I mention long weekends?

On those long summer days that seem to last forever, I sometimes catch myself thinking in a distracted way about winter. January does feel like a distant planet, a half-repressed memory, a part of our lives that we acknowledge but hope never comes to pass.

I don't know about you, but for the next couple months, I'll be keeping myself warm by thinking summer thoughts. I'm living for the day, weeks from now, when I'll finally be able to drive with the windows down again. I'll be wearing shorts. And sandals. And a Hawaiian shirt.

On that day, the symbolic hibernating will be over at last. My life will begin again.

This article was originally published in the London Free Press.