I miss winter. There I said it. I’m sure the weather of the past month is nothing more then a passing El Nino phenomenon, and I hope it’s not global warming and an ever-worsening trend. Whatever it is, it seems the sub-zero, snowy winters of yore have vanished from Chicago.
I miss winter because, as an avid runner, winter was a time of complete isolation while engaging my addiction on the lakefront, and a break from the magnificent throngs of summertime athletes, pre-marathon. If one veered from the running path and onto the sands of Montrose, Foster or Hollywood beaches, one was assured of entering a cold, lifeless seashore desert, devoid of the most basic rudiments of life. The frigid air stung the face and froze the nostrils shut while spray from the winter waves froze to your running togs. To gaze out onto the great Michigan Sea, one had to first climb atop the huge wave-formed ice mountains that built up at the base of the shoreline. Having scaled one of the small alps, one would then survey the massively steaming body of water so gracefully dotted with small icebergs as far as the eyes could see.
This is the same balmy body of water I swam in only four months ago? Unreal.
The ice isn’t there this year and I miss it.
The other day as I ran, the temperature had soared to 52 degrees, and I was dressed in my shorts and a sweatshirt, and the sweatshirt was too much as I was sweating. I stopped to pick up and throw away an abandoned empty champagne bottle, an obvious fossil from the New Year’s fireworks display a few short days before. I wondered if the owners of the bottle had set out a blanket to view the display, much the same as they would have for the 4th of July.
I miss winter.
It is now 7 in the morning, and as I look out my window writing this letter, contemplating an early run, I notice the bleak sky is filled with puffy rain clouds. Are these the same clouds that dumped two feet of snow on Denver? Why is Colorado so lucky?
Yes I do miss winter, but after all, this is Chicago and the holidays have recently ended, and it is only January. February is still several days away. March is several weeks away, and the gray sky may stay this way a few more months.
What have I been saying? Someone splash water in my face! I miss summer.
