Nonetheless, the cold is real, and requires an expertise in layering. The drawers that hold the appropriate garments must be searched through and cataloged after a spring-summer-fall of neglect: long sleeved flannel undershirts, tight fitting long johns, heavy pants and shirts, gloves, hats, down and/or wool vest and coats, and boots with knuckled soles are retrieved.
The clothes are invested with a lifetime of hard won experience, knowledge, and money. To find a suitable combination any thought of fashion is forgotten. Practicality rules the day or at least what is left of the day as winter progresses.
The earth’s wobble tilts the planet in such a way that the sun’s warming rays aimed at the north ricochet back into the absolute cold of space. Southern climes are sought for relief, but this realization can prove difficult. The vagaries of the jet stream threaten Florida as well as Chicago. It requires optimism to plan a winter respite months ahead. It is a gamble to drive south, attempt to tan, and then return home unscathed.
To add to the chaos, once a storm is named it invests the populace with mania. Grocery store shelves are emptied, classes are canceled, snow blowers are prepped, and we are asked to check in on the vulnerable.
I am indebted to R. H. Blyth and to his four volumes simply called, Haiku. Each season I take the appropriate volume from its reverential space on the bookshelf and read his commentary. The haiku are interspersed with quotations from Western poets and writers.
Though I have had these books since my early twenties I have never
fully read them. They act as a reference for how to perceive the world, more encyclopedic than novelistic. Japan is an animistic nation, thus haiku poetry is supremely tailored to represent it. For the most part Blyth indexes the poems in a natural order. Birds and beasts, trees and flowers, sky and elements are some of the topics.
I have spent much of my life on the water and much of that on Lake Michigan, so the wind plays large in my perception of nature. Haiku, in a mere 17 syllables, encapsulates the reality of the wind.
Buson writes: The winter storm, The voice of the rushing water, Torn by the rocks. I can see it, I can feel the spray on my face, and I am relieved to be lounging on a comfortable chair in a warm home, and not out fighting the tempest.
Basho on the other hand is not as abstract as Buson. He writes: The tempest is blowing: Someone’s painfully swollen face. Now this describes a winter in our beloved windy city. This is raw and visceral, and even though I am comfortable now, within the poem’s few words, an inescapable truth lies. That ultimately there is no comfort.
I wonder if a warm tropical breeze was bathing me, would I still be as dire. Would a few swaying palm trees uplift my worldview, temporarily I suppose.
A Polar Vortex (capitalize now!), or its equivalent is bound to be lurking out there somewhere. I will be thinking of this when I try to escape from its clutches this February, no matter the inescapable truth.
November 2019
