Seasonal Amnesia

With a warmer (and drier than average) spring, seasonal amnesia has afflicted me earlier than usual this year. Someone explained this term to me during my first year in Minnesota and declared it's the real reason non-native Minnesotans decide to stick around. (And this was from a Wisconsite - is the weather really that much better there?) Even if you love winter like I do, the hassles do eventually wear you down. Snow is pretty, but when it comes down March, or even April, it's too slushy and heavy to do anything other than make driving a mess. Nothing's uglier than old snow, dirty and trampled. By February, I'm tired of salt stains on my shoes, streets narrowed by snowbanks, cars caked in white dust and poorly shoveled sidewalks. The melting process is messy, but gradually the snow disappears, the grass turns greener, the trees bud, the days turn noticeably longer each day, people are out and about on the sidewalks and in the parks, cafes put tables and chair out on the sidewalks and you see your neighbors for the first time in months. The weather is beautiful, you can more easily enjoy being outside and everyone just seems happier. And then you think, how could I live anywhere else?

Seasonal amnesia is hitting me harder this year after living through my first winter with a baby. It must be the body's survival instinct going into overdrive. Instead of spending the warm-weather months recovering from a winter-induced post-traumatic stress disorder, I can actually enjoy the months ahead - and pretend that winter will never come again. Again, I will state that I like winter. Minnesota wouldn't be Minnesota without hard winters. I went to school in Maine, so I get bad winters and wasn't fazed by that prospect when I moved here. But then I had a baby and tried pushing a stroller on a sidewalk with snow (FYI - doesn't work) and had to carry a baby in a car seat over a snowbank daily and I thought I didn't care if it ever snowed again. I was jealous of the moms on my New Moms, New Babies podcast, (a spinoff of my favorite podcast, Pregtastic) which is produced in San Diego, who were adjusting to motherhood without figuring out how they were going to dress their baby for an outing in subzero temperatures, where the baby blues wasn't being compounded by lack of sunlight or how they were going to get exercise with a baby in toe when the sidewalks and roads were covered in snow. Snow used to be fun, but it just became a nuisance when it made everything I did with Oliver that much more difficult.

I adapted though. Staying home wasn't an option for my own sanity. I started driving to a city park where the paths were plowed and my stroller could get through and took a very bundled up Oliver on walks in everything but the coldest of weather. I never thought I'd be a mall walker, but I found myself at the Mall of American more times than I would like to admit to even myself to walk with other moms. With every snowfall, I was outside shoveling out my car and meticulously clearing the sidewalk and front walkway during Oliver's naptimes, so that I lessened my chances of being snowed in.

And then one Thursday in the middle of March we flew to Philadelphia. There was still a foot of snow of on the ground and treacherous snowbanks, but when we arrived home the following Sunday afternoon, even the snowbanks had disappeared and it was 60 degrees and sunny. Instead of the memories of the inconveniences of enduring winter with a newborn, I looked forward to summer when I could dress Oliver in just a onesie, go for walks right from my front door instead of having to drive somewhere or set up his playpen on the back deck and enjoy the warmth of the sun and fresh air. I know winter will be back, but until then, I'm allowing myself to fall victim to seasonal amnesia.