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Oct. 2nd, 2010 09:04 amI'm still getting acclimated to the way Chicago changes seasons, even after years living here. Some of the process I get, intellectually, but when I have to go through it I'm still surprised. Perhaps because it's dictated by unpredictable elements like the weather.
There's always one night in autumn where I realise that the light down blanket I sleep with in the summertime is not going to cut it in winter, and usually I have to get up around one in the morning and put more blankets on the bed. This feels nicely traditional to me, and I love having lots of blankets on the bed, so I don't mind it; the only problem this time was that The Night was last night, and I'd packed the blankets into the airtight insect-proof box in my closet, so I had to clear a few things off the box to get to it.
The box represents the second ritual I usually have to perform, which is the changeover from Summer to Winter. In the summer, the box holds most of my cold-weather gear, hats and scarves and gloves, blankets, fleecy slippers, my spare boots. Usually around the end of October (it's early this year) I haul out the box and do the changeover: unpack all the winter stock and pack away my sandals, the electric fan, the light summer clothing.
The third ritual is mainly confined to apartment-dwellers, I think, and that is the combined removal of the air conditioner (which will be neatly wrapped in plastic and stashed beneath my window all winter) and calibration of the radiators. Calibrating the radiators takes about a week, once the Super turns them on, and is never completely perfect, but generally I can get them set so that I don't have to mess with them the rest of winter. I have never truly mastered an understanding of how they function, but I've done a lot of reading about them and I'm getting there.
My first winter in Chicago was the worst, and not just from my perspective -- of the three winters I've spent here, it was the coldest, and I was working very close to the lake. There were days I'd walk out of the building and the wind would almost blow me flat. Even last winter, with the ice storm that slicked up every surface so bad I couldn't even walk to the train two blocks away, wasn't as bad as the first winter I spent here. Unless we have another heat spell, though, this winter's looking to be a lot longer at least. Usually it doesn't get this cold for at least another few weeks. Last year or the year before, they had to stop the Chicago Marathon because it was too hot to continue -- in the middle of October.
I love the cold, I love the snow and the changeover rituals; if nothing else they give us something to talk about. I suffer through Chicago summers because I'm rewarded with Chicago winters. One of my coworkers once told me that it's not the first few winters in Chicago that get you -- it's the fifteenth or sixteenth winter that you start to get tired of it. I don't know that I'll be here that long, but I'm enjoying the euphoria while it lasts. I've been in Chicago for four years, this week, and I'm not tired of winter yet.
When I was studying Paganism, back in college, it took me a long time to realise that the ancient agrarian-based rhythms of western-European tradition were fantastic, but weren't quite fitted to the urban life I was living. They needed some adjustments -- as an example, the festival of transition at the autumnal equinox, the dying of the summer, came early for me with the cycle of birth and death during the first show-strike at the theatre every year near the start of October. I still live my life in rhythms and celebrate the changing of those with ritual, but the rhythms are suited to the environment and the rituals are too.
That's okay; bring on the ritual, I say. Besides, even if I didn't want to do it (and I do), it's not like I can avoid the point at which I wake up at one in the morning, shivering, and decide it's time for more blankets on the bed.
There's always one night in autumn where I realise that the light down blanket I sleep with in the summertime is not going to cut it in winter, and usually I have to get up around one in the morning and put more blankets on the bed. This feels nicely traditional to me, and I love having lots of blankets on the bed, so I don't mind it; the only problem this time was that The Night was last night, and I'd packed the blankets into the airtight insect-proof box in my closet, so I had to clear a few things off the box to get to it.
The box represents the second ritual I usually have to perform, which is the changeover from Summer to Winter. In the summer, the box holds most of my cold-weather gear, hats and scarves and gloves, blankets, fleecy slippers, my spare boots. Usually around the end of October (it's early this year) I haul out the box and do the changeover: unpack all the winter stock and pack away my sandals, the electric fan, the light summer clothing.
The third ritual is mainly confined to apartment-dwellers, I think, and that is the combined removal of the air conditioner (which will be neatly wrapped in plastic and stashed beneath my window all winter) and calibration of the radiators. Calibrating the radiators takes about a week, once the Super turns them on, and is never completely perfect, but generally I can get them set so that I don't have to mess with them the rest of winter. I have never truly mastered an understanding of how they function, but I've done a lot of reading about them and I'm getting there.
My first winter in Chicago was the worst, and not just from my perspective -- of the three winters I've spent here, it was the coldest, and I was working very close to the lake. There were days I'd walk out of the building and the wind would almost blow me flat. Even last winter, with the ice storm that slicked up every surface so bad I couldn't even walk to the train two blocks away, wasn't as bad as the first winter I spent here. Unless we have another heat spell, though, this winter's looking to be a lot longer at least. Usually it doesn't get this cold for at least another few weeks. Last year or the year before, they had to stop the Chicago Marathon because it was too hot to continue -- in the middle of October.
I love the cold, I love the snow and the changeover rituals; if nothing else they give us something to talk about. I suffer through Chicago summers because I'm rewarded with Chicago winters. One of my coworkers once told me that it's not the first few winters in Chicago that get you -- it's the fifteenth or sixteenth winter that you start to get tired of it. I don't know that I'll be here that long, but I'm enjoying the euphoria while it lasts. I've been in Chicago for four years, this week, and I'm not tired of winter yet.
When I was studying Paganism, back in college, it took me a long time to realise that the ancient agrarian-based rhythms of western-European tradition were fantastic, but weren't quite fitted to the urban life I was living. They needed some adjustments -- as an example, the festival of transition at the autumnal equinox, the dying of the summer, came early for me with the cycle of birth and death during the first show-strike at the theatre every year near the start of October. I still live my life in rhythms and celebrate the changing of those with ritual, but the rhythms are suited to the environment and the rituals are too.
That's okay; bring on the ritual, I say. Besides, even if I didn't want to do it (and I do), it's not like I can avoid the point at which I wake up at one in the morning, shivering, and decide it's time for more blankets on the bed.
