In Milwaukee, this is the time of year when we are so afraid it’s never going get warm again. We’ve had six straight months of hard, cold winter weather here on the west coast of Lake Michigan. Winter is not leaving gracefully and we are paranoid.
This time of year, Winter is also mentally and emotionally abusive to Milwaukeeans. It toys with us, like it did last week, when temperatures shot to the eighties and we went nuts, donning shorts and flip-flops, and sipping German beers al fresco under bare trees.
Then Winter said, “I don’t think so.” Temperatures plummeted back into the thirties; sleet fell; frigid winds leaked through the windows and we had to turn the heat on again. Friday it started raining just after John and I started out for a long walk. We looked at each other and sighed, pulled down our caps, bent forward and went. Milwaukeeans feel a keen sense of defeat this time of year.
Although we long for Winter to give up and go home, there’s one thing about it I will miss, and that’s the spectacular effect it had on Lake Michigan this year. I’m no weather expert, but there was something about the cold and snow and ice and the way the light hit everything. I’ve looked out at the lake every day for nine years now and I’ve never seen it look as strangely beautiful as it did this past winter.
Hate to say it, but I will miss it.
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