Tag Archives: snow

Getting through

Ah, winter. This is the north, you know. It’s cold and it snows. Some of us like it. A lot of us don’t.

I’m in the like-it category—the coziness, a fire in my fireplace and me with a good book, and the sounds of silence the snow brings.

I’m not the only one who likes winter. I hear from many readers that they like it too. One reader last year sent me photos of mountains of snow that he considered thrilling. I did too.

Those children (and a few adults) who were sliding down the hill on the Boston Common a couple of Sundays ago must like it too.

People who want a bit of calm should find winter welcome. September and October can be hectic with every organization making up for the lack of activity during the summer. The run-up to the holidays, when decorating days, holiday strolls and December parties crowd the calendar, are another hectic time. And April and May can make an active person bedraggled keeping up with the organizations who are all trying to get their missions accomplished before summer hits and everyone is presumed to be going away.

January, February and March, by contrast, are more leisurely. Organizations are not frantic, and there are diversions—the Oscars, for example, and lots of laughs at the news: bizarre presidential candidates, new rattlesnakes on a Quabbin Reservoir island, MBTA follies, and arguments over an old bridge. You can’t make this stuff up.

The people who successfully thrive in winter employ coping strategies. One woman tries to meet as many friends as possible. A Back Bay couple said they go away for a week every January. Another woman enjoys counting the days until the Red Sox roll back into town.

A psychotherapist who has seen countless patients in this northern climate over the years, says she has observed that native New Englanders cope better than those coming from warmer climates. “Folks who cope well are those who were born here and like winter sport,” said Dr. Shari Thurer, who lives on Beacon Hill. She said younger people do better because they aren’t afraid to go outside. Also doing well are people who have a wide social network. “The cold is very isolating,” she noted.

Another successful strategy appears to be those who look for winter’s pleasures. “I learned to embrace winter,” said Diane Valle of Charlestown. “I like to shovel, I like to

make a fire  and I ski. As I get older, I realize how short winter really is and see it as a rest stop before spring.”

Valle, the impetus behind Marathon Daffodils, in which hundreds of people plant bulbs and prepare pots of daffodils that bloom along the Boston Marathon route, is also busy preparing for that April run, so it’s possible she doesn’t have time to wallow in winter darkness.

Ivan Hansen, who lives on Beacon Hill and will turn 80 this March, says winter is a joy for him because it is the season of performances—music concerts, the theater, the ballet. Hansen, who grew up in Minnesota, even colder than Boston, said winter reminds him of the fun of childhood, when snow means play and games. He is proud that except for a recent spell in the hospital, he has been out tromping around in the weather every single day for several years.

Reading by a fire, baking and braising, and listening to the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcasts gets Francine Crawford of the Back Bay through the winter. This year, however, she’s taken a different tack, one that some New Englanders might find refreshing. She’s headed for a warm clime, but it’s not Florida. She is returning for a short visit to Maui, where her mother was born and raised and she used to visit in the summers. But her plans are not beachy.

She is looking forward to visiting the Baldwin Sugar Museum, a museum of plantation life during the early 20th century. Her grandfather and uncles worked for the sugar company. The museum, she said, has formed a partnership with UMass Dartmouth that will digitize the company’s records and create a searchable website so people can trace their families and employment histories. Since she hasn’t been back to the island since 1968, she expects it will have changed.

Getting through the winter will be exciting for Crawford. For the rest of us, there is still that toasty fire.

Big question

Do San Diego residents experience joy? I don’t know the answer and I’m not sure I would believe a SanDiegoan if they told me. I’m talking about the sublime feeling, the rush, the pure happiness we Bostonians feel when the sun comes out and the temperature rises to 65 degrees.

We take a walk. We see all our neighbors—they are out walking also. Everyone is happy; no one is grumpy. The air smells good even if the hyacinths are too low to the ground to catch their scent. We feel we deserve this day, this feeling, this release. Winter is gone (probably). Spring is here.

We know it from the calendar, Opening Day and the Marathon. Those are wonderful too. But it is the nice weather that pushes us over the hurdle.

We’ve now had several of these days. Most of the snow is gone. Even those like me who love the snow and the winter—and I’ve found that I’m not that unusual—feel that same joy on the best spring days.

I’m betting that residents of San Diego don’t have that feeling. If it is the same weather all the time, even if it is nice weather, a person would not appreciate it, except to tell you that they don’t like to shovel snow, so that’s why they moved there.

My evidence is scant about happiness and weather, but I do have some personal clues and some studies by persons equipped to do such things.

One of our daughters went to college in California. When she was about to leave Boston at the end of the almost month-long Christmas holiday in her first year, I told her I was sorry that we’d had not one day of sunshine the whole month she was home.

She looked at me as if I were daft. “That doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I’m sick of sun. That’s all that happens. Sunny day after sunny day. It is so boring.”

Then there is Denmark. In study after study, that country comes in as having the happiest people. They have dark winters with snow. They pay high taxes. They aren’t the wealthiest people in the world, but they’re not poor either. Although Americans would think those factors matter, apparently they don’t.

The Danes report more satisfaction with life, less social isolation and feel more in control of their lives than residents of other countries. Most say they have a sense of meaning or purpose in their lives. Most also say they have free time to pursue interests. They tend to be happy in their jobs, which offer flexibility in working hours that help Danes balance work and family life.

Switzerland and Norway also have happy citizens. The U.S. is not too bad. Satisfaction with life is said to be greater here than in Spain, Russia, Greece and Hungary.

All this is measured by a group called the Happiness Research Institute. Their report on one Danish town concludes that happiness is dependent on several factors, one of which is health. Another important factor is a feeling of community, a connection to friends and family, opportunities to get together with other people from social occasions to study groups to helping out in a soup kitchen. Weather, apparently, has nothing to do with happiness. Alaska, for example, was recently named the happiest state.

I know of no one who has measured Bostonians’ happiness, although one UC Berkeley School of Law professor compared San Franciscans and Bostonians, and found that Bostonians achieve self-satisfaction through “educational attainment, finances, family support and contribution to others.” San Franciscans, on the other hand, “tied satisfaction of their life to work.” The study found that Bostonians place more value on community life than do San Franciscans.

I’m not sure that self-satisfaction is the same as happiness, but it’s close. I haven’t noticed that my San Franciscan friends are only focused on work or have less community spirit than my Boston friends. So maybe the happiness study needs more work.

We should be happy in downtown Boston. Every neighborhood here has a rich community life, with many opportunities for seeing friends, meeting people and collaborating with others. We only have to go out our front door to become part of our community, which starts on the sidewalk.

Nevertheless, we’ll take that sunny, fresh, beautiful spring day. Joy may be a completely different matter from happiness.