This past weekend, the last thing I did - before praying that I'd wake up in time on Monday - was check what the weather would be like to plan out which clothes to wear. Man, I really missed doing that.
Over the past few months I got used to never checking it. I'd just look out the window in the mornings to confirm that, yes, I was still cold and snowed upon. But the recent change in weather had me returning to my old haunts, my weather widget and weather.com. It felt like a homecoming, the familiar icons and graphics reminding me of simpler times when the weather actually changed. Ah, the fall'¦ we hardly knew ye.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who felt so inundated by the winter. The Capital Times recently reported this winter dumped the most snow on Madison ever, shattering the all-time snowfall record of 76.1 inches set in the winter of 1978-79."" Lucky me, I get to tell folks I was here for that, saw the snow banks reaching up into the sky and the ubiquitous fields of ice. I got to feel that on a couple of times, too, twice on my back and once on my knee; never had I felt like suing someone so much as when I fell on their ice.
But now things are done, over with, through. The first day of spring is a mere week or so away, and it'll be nice then, surely. Or, at least, so we hope. I am among the majority of Americans who, deep down, don't really believe anyone can predict the weather, regardless of what the weather forecasters say. (Besides, they always undermine themselves with the percentages, reminding us they could very easily be wrong.) For all we know, it could be snowing again next week, or even hailing. The weather is such a foreign, unknowable thing to us. We take it all in stride, no matter how ridiculous it is. ""Oh, it's raining frogs? Well, that'll probably lighten up a bit over the weekend. Pass the butter.""
Now, I'm no weather forecaster, but I don't think our record snowfall this year necessarily means the end times are coming (except for the Capital Times, of course). I'm just consistently surprised at the ability of the human species to get used to anything. When I'd be really cold this year, trudging home at night through five feet of fresh snow, it would help me to think of how bad the original settlers must have had it. I'd think if they could endure not just a few freezing hours a day, but the entire season without any modern conveniences of heat or shelter, then surely I could go a few more steps.
It's easy to forget how good we have it, after all. It's not just all our American food when there are starving children in Mars or wherever, but even just central heating and being able to take a nice hot shower after getting home on such a night. Being civilized and coddled by technology doesn't always mean iPhones or Lexuses (Lexi?) that park themselves. Sometimes the best thing science has done for us is just allowing us to forget certain things, like being eaten, the plague or (for the most part) the elements. Maybe someday we'll be able to bring things completely under control, and being rained on accidentally will be as much a thing of the past as dying of smallpox.
This doesn't mean some things should be forgotten altogether, though, like the feel of a spring rainfall or a cough to breathe easier. Or, for that matter, looking at the weather forecast to plan out your clothing choices.
