It is snowing today where I live and it will continue through the night. I wonder what the morning is going to be like. It is interesting to be an outsider in the Midwest. I grew up in Calcutta, India, which for better or worse, will always be my home town. Calcutta is a ragged place, an ancient city bursting at the seams sort of place with too many people who seem to be going anywhere you are headed. A noisy place where cacophony accompanies existence and where a few moments of silence and repose are precious and unlikely.
Now, I live in a quiet, too quiet- almost to the point of moribund "development" in a Midwestern suburbia, surrounded by McMansions, where I have to drive to get anywhere- although things are easily accessible but I miss walking and sunshine and fine weather without mosquitoes thrown in for good measure. I think about other immigrants to the Midwest- I know there are Hmong people nearby and lots of folks displaced from Somalia, too. I wonder how they cope with the winter mayhem.
I miss the getting outdoors without planning and being a flaneur in the sunshine. It has been horribly cold recently- like breaking decades worth of weather firsts- cold. So venturing out those days was impossible. Warmed up for a bit with some sunshine thrown in for good measure and then it froze. Every walk I have taken has been accompanied by the nagging thought that I should have worn my yak trax for better traction on this frozen slippery tundra. And yet, the whole act of have two sets of shoes- one for the outside and another for being indoors hasn't got any traction from me. The winter gear is beginning to wear me down. It has always been so. February is a tough month with little sunshine, dreary weather and a sense of cabin fever. I wonder if I will every adapt to this weather. I know human beings are resilient but right now I would like to be anywhere but here.
Now, I live in a quiet, too quiet- almost to the point of moribund "development" in a Midwestern suburbia, surrounded by McMansions, where I have to drive to get anywhere- although things are easily accessible but I miss walking and sunshine and fine weather without mosquitoes thrown in for good measure. I think about other immigrants to the Midwest- I know there are Hmong people nearby and lots of folks displaced from Somalia, too. I wonder how they cope with the winter mayhem.
I miss the getting outdoors without planning and being a flaneur in the sunshine. It has been horribly cold recently- like breaking decades worth of weather firsts- cold. So venturing out those days was impossible. Warmed up for a bit with some sunshine thrown in for good measure and then it froze. Every walk I have taken has been accompanied by the nagging thought that I should have worn my yak trax for better traction on this frozen slippery tundra. And yet, the whole act of have two sets of shoes- one for the outside and another for being indoors hasn't got any traction from me. The winter gear is beginning to wear me down. It has always been so. February is a tough month with little sunshine, dreary weather and a sense of cabin fever. I wonder if I will every adapt to this weather. I know human beings are resilient but right now I would like to be anywhere but here.
