Winter

Mamacita was writing about snow days and it was discombobulating for a second because I was wearing a short sleeved polo shirt and cotton pajama pants.

Then, I remembered that it was real wintry weather in most of the rest of the country. Of course, it's wintry weather here, too, but here is Tucson, after all.



I've lost my weather chops totally and completely. The first winter we lived in Marin I wore corduroy walking shorts, wool socks and hiking boots all through December and January and February. My winter coat was my J Peterman unlined cotton raincoat which was buttoned up only when I wanted to protect the clothing below. A winter without shoveling or slipping or freezing merited clothing that respected its balmy-ness.

That duster is still in the hall closet, nestled beside our wool overcoats. We live in Tucson. They'll hang there for a long long long long time.

When G'ma first moved here, the lack of familiar visual and sensory cues only exacerbated her confusion. She was in short sleeves and it was December; suddenly she had to use her memory for the seasons, too. On Long Island, she just looked out the window and the answer was there. Warm sunshine and sitting on the Adirondack chairs in the pod-castle's courtyard is not what her brain processed as winter.

Do not mis-understand me. I like the snow. Some of my happiest moments have occurred when sub-zero temperatures and the great out-doors have coincided. I voluntarily lived in Ithaca and Chicago, cities with almost nothing except hard winters in common. Christmas sneaks up on me, still; I miss the view from my Chicago dining room window, the backyard with the apple tree and the neighbor's fancy fence and the wooden fort and especially the slide, atilt, creating a perfect triangle all blanketed in white.

(You can just feel the But, can't you?!)

But, there's something to be said for feeling put-upon when you actually have to zip your sweatshirt over your tights on the way into the gym. Here, these

are merely a fashion statement when it's too cold for flip-flops and I need something easy off/easy on for yoga or pilates

Yes, I am officially a weather wimp. Remember my first winter in Marin? The one with the unlined cotton raincoat? By the following Thanksgiving I was using that coat to cover wool pants and a turtle-neck-under-a-sweater.

And I am unashamed.