The Winter of Our Polar Vortex

Before this week, I'd never heard of a polar vortex, and now here we are in one. It's an interesting phrase. The words conjure up an image of swirling ice and snow, a gigantic moving whirlpool sucking polar bears, igloos, sleds, Olympic ice dancers, and anything else in the vicinity through a black hole into some alternate universe. I picture it working like the "Wood Between the Worlds" in Narnia, where jumping into a forest pool takes you straight to a different world. I might jump in it myself if I thought I would land in the tropics, but you never know with these magic portals.

The more mundane reality is that around here it hasn't been much different than any other cold spell, although you do have to bundle up excessively. If you go out only for a moment, to check the mail, you don't really notice it, but if you stay out any longer, like I did while deciding whether to put something in the recycling bin, you realize fast just how glacial the air is. People seem to be going about their business, though, and we were lucky not to get a lot of snow and ice. I've been at home, making the best of it, which for me means writing and spending time in the kitchen, both of which are safer than outdoor activities. (Of course, much depends on the kitchen and the writing; both are usually safe as practiced by me.) Spicy music on the stereo also helps.

It's nice to be able to escape to a warm climate if you can, although some of us cannot. When I was in grad school, winter breezed by me because I was commuting regularly to Southern California. I often had to change my clothes when I got there, tucking my coat into my suitcase and sometimes even changing my outfit. I also remember a couple of January trips to Florida that revealed just how wonderful it can be to trade a frozen landscape for an ocean the color of turquoise green. I once drove to the Keys for a writer's conference, going, unbelievably, from an overcast Kentucky winter to a humid tropical thunderstorm in the space of a day.

To everything, there is a season, though. I remember a monumental snowstorm of 20 years ago (for us, that means more than eight or nine inches), which was followed immediately by a precipitous temperature drop. We ended up with roads thickly covered in ice, on which it was possible to slide even while stopped at a light, as I discovered in my Toyota. The main thing I took away from this, aside from a new aesthetic appreciation for dry pavement, is a memory of a stuck car I saw on my way to work one morning. On a busy street, near downtown, this car was stranded on a hill, and a number of passersby had stopped to help. As I watched, the group pushed and rocked and strove until the car was finally free.

You might think that after several arduous minutes of laboring in freezing cold and deep snow on a slippery hill to free a stranger's car, people would look a little worse for wear. After all, they had places to be, too, and might now be late getting wherever they had to go. Actually, they were all smiling and laughing. There was a great camaraderie about that scene and a lot of jubilation; I've thought about it many times since. Sometimes it takes a harsh spell of weather to show you how good people can be. Tough conditions give altruism a chance to shine.

I guess I would have missed that scene if I'd been in the tropics, so maybe it was good I didn't manage a winter vacation that year. It's good to have a few memories like that tucked away in your pockets for later viewing. Of course, I like tropical sunsets and sandy beaches as much as the next person, but if not for the contrast with all these winters, I might not appreciate them as well as I do.