on winter

"How are you going to give up all...this?"

This is a question I've been getting ever since January, when I began telling people about my impending move to Green Bay (Mind you, the question is never posed by academics because they know how difficult it is to get an academic job. It's also never posed by people who know how much I love winter, but I'll get to that in a second.). This question is always accompanied by this hand gesture which I believe is meant to refer to the nice weather, beaches, and palm trees but I can't be sure (I can only assume that "this" and the gesture don't refer to the insanely high cost of living, suffocating traffic, and the difficulties one encounters when trying to find a parking spot). If I had a dollar for every time I was asked this question, I could finally pony up for a guilt-free ferry ride to Catalina Island (that's what I should do--require everyone who inquires to contribute to my SoCal exploration fund). 

When I decided to go to graduate school, I never set out to escape winter. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I deliberately applied to schools only in the midwest and the (north)east coast. How did UCI slip through the cracks? I thought the program was too good to pass up, and so I broke my winter-only rule. Surely, I thought to myself, if you are accepted, you can forgo winter for 6 or 7 years. In the grand scheme of things, it won't be so bad.

I visited UCI in April and liked it right away. I knew it was a good fit for me, professionally and personally, winter or no winter. On visiting day, everyone apologized for the "bad weather." I think it was a little rainy, which means that there was some slight drizzling, and it was maybe 65 degrees. At the time, I thought the weather was wonderful and I welcomed it (I was coming from Minnesota, where there was snow on the ground, and the temperature was likely in the 30s), but as the years would go by, I would come to relish those "bad weather" days.

Immediately, I knew that I liked UCI and that I would go there, but I still struggled with my decision. Could I really deal with 60-some degree winters? Could I deal without the snow? I knew that my answers had to be yes and that I'd be stupid to pass up this opportunity, and so I happily accepted and decided that I would attend in the fall. But when the realization that I'd experienced my last winter (for the foreseeable future) hit me, I cried.

I quickly learned that being from Minnesota carries with it the expectation that I hate winter and am grateful to be rid of it. Upon meeting new people, after learning where I'm from, without fail, they exclaim "Oh, you must love it here!" (ha! If I had a dollar for every time I got that response, I wouldn't have had to apply for research grants!) Because I did not receive the memo that I was supposed to hate cold weather, this reaction was peculiar to me at first but became almost unbearably annoying over time. 

For the first year at least, I played along and tried my best to embrace California. I wore flip flops every single day for a year for no other reason than I just could. I packed away my sweaters and winter coat and bought skirts and a light jacket. I barbequed in January. I swam in the ocean on Christmas day, and I went to the beach almost every other week. I did my schoolwork on the beach, I graded on the beach, and I ran on the beach. When Minnesota was covered in snow, I'd call my parents and brag about the warm and sunny weather, sometimes even from the beach (and of course, I let them know that part too). 

Around my second or third year of graduate school, it all got old. I tried my best to forget about crisp fall air, crunchy leaves, snow, half-frozen puddles of water, and yes, even sub-zero temperatures. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried to enjoy the year-round warm weather, I never got used to the lack of seasons or the inexplicable 80 and 90 degree heat waves that arrived in the middle of January. I never acclimated to Southern California weather. Without a calendar, I wouldn't know what month we were in or what holiday to celebrate. I am always underdressed for the weather, and I can't remember the last time I wore a jacket. As the years went by, I became less enthusiastic about Starbucks' seasonal lattes because there was a disconnect between the weather and the seasons--it was always too hot outside for me to enjoy them. If a Californian asks me if it's cold outside, I still can't be trusted to give an accurate answer because by my Minnesota standards, it is never cold here.  

Over the years, I became more desperate for winter. I hung up pictures of snow scenes in my office. I changed the background on my laptop to a picture of an icy river. When my facebook friends post pictures of the snow, I feel immensely jealous. And when Minnesota gets particularly cold or gets a lot of snow, I call my parents, but not to brag about the sunny weather in California. Rather, I ask them to brag so that I can experience the winter vicariously through them.    

In less than three months, Drew and I will be headed for Green Bay. With the impending move from California and that we're near the end of a week-long heat wave with temperatures reaching the mid-90s, I've been thinking about winter lately (and to be clear, I yearn for winter when it's not so hot here too). I've also been thinking about the things that I will and will not miss about SoCal, and the weather is something I won't miss. After I accepted the job, I promised Drew that I wouldn't complain about the weather and that I'd try my best to enjoy my last "winter" in California. I think I was mostly successful.

But lately, now that "winter" is safely over here, I've allowed myself to start thinking about the things I'm excited about doing in Green Bay that I really can't do in Irvine. I can't wait to carve pumpkins, set them outside, and not worry about them rotting in a week. I can't wait to sip pumpkin spice lattes in the fall and peppermint mochas in the winter (okay, I can do that in Irvine, but it feels weird when it's 80 degrees outside). I can't wait to breathe in the crisp, fall air and step on all the crunchy leaves. I can't wait to make winter soups and stews. I can't wait to go ice skating. And of course, I can't wait for the first snow.