Tired of All The Winter Weather Hype

Have you had it with the constant, unrelenting weather reports that sound more like John Grisham novels than weather reports?  Me too.  This week, I shared my thoughts on GardenRant (where one should share Rants after all), but share them here too on a Friday afternoon.

Weather forecasting is good.  Weather fear porn is not. – MW

There is nothing quite so tender as the sight of a grey, ice-locked landscape melting into warm browns during a winter respite. I am struck by the beauty of it all this morning, and deeply thankful I live in a climate with strongly definable seasons (despite the slipping and sliding we have done over the last three weeks).  We are able to experience the thrill of welcoming 40F (5C) as if it is an old friend we had forgotten we loved – knowing she will leave again before the spring comes.

Meanwhile, on news channels, from the middle of the road, to the far-left to the far-right – all can agree that the next Winter Storm [insert name] is the worst in X years, and will catastrophically affect every creature unfortunate enough to live in a climate north of the equator.

It is to their credit that they at least spare us the daily weather concerns of the southern hemisphere.

Everyone’s news. All the time.

It does not matter if you live 3000 miles away in the Pacific Northwest – or if you access the internet from a little cottage in Guernsey.   You will still know of this storm, you will still be frightened by it, what it could mean, what it portends for mankind and the future of us all.

It will add to your vague life-unease as you are regaled with weather records by sculpted talking heads and chests that gravely state “coldest temperature in [insert current month] since [insert date in last twenty years]” and which expect us all to quiver and shake against the terror of it all. And click again for more terror.

Enough. I am sick to the teeth of it.

What is the purpose?

Ask yourself that. To keep us in a constant sense of unease?  Our nerves are already strung to breaking point, our daily lives disrupted, our friendships and communities frayed and battered by a lack of face-to-face contact.

We are fragile, and searching for stability. We are unsure.  We are unsure of each other. An email from a dear, always optimistic friend in Wales yesterday after many months silent says “It has all been so mad for the last 2 years, and I wonder if I will have any friends left when we finally are free to do what we want, when we want to. All the negotiations about people’s fears, and rules of connection, and yap about it, have driven me to nearly losing my sense of humour.”

Should this scene concern me? Comfort me? Is it the right week of the year? Is it the right kind of snow? Tell me what to think.

Yet we must be frightened…made more vulnerable and unsure. After all, frightened people are hungry for more news [read: they click more].  Those that believe in global conspiracies forget that news organizations act first for ratings. That the telling of the story – whether political or meteorological – may be detrimental to the long term mental health of its audience is of little concern when ratings are paramount.

Just. Report. The. Damn. Weather.

Temperature, precipitation, visibility – add 50 words of puerile commentary if you must. Is a tornado in my vicinity? Thank you for telling me – we’ll do all we can.  Is a hurricane expected? Give us a category and projected path.  Flash flooding? I’m thankful for the heads up. It’s a damn sight more than farmers and gardeners had 150 years ago living lives much closer to the bone than we. Without electricity.

This works for me. Short and to the point. When a winter weather advisory is forecast, I’ll see it.

Things were [always] better when…

I live in a climate that expects winter.  Or at least we used to.  I moved here 20 years ago knowing that.  I regularly hear Mid-Atlantic natives reminiscing that in the old days they were always sledding in the winter and there were ice floes on the Potomac, and they would skate with friends until their mothers caught them.

If there were ice floes on the Potomac, then I can guarantee that it was freaking cold.

That we’d probably had a storm. Perhaps several.  That it had cut off roads, and caused accidents and created chaos.  Some people may have lost their lives. And that’s winter.  It’s why billions of people living in cold climates have dreaded it for thousands of years. It’s why they got stores in, and kept pantries, and gulped deeply when the harvest didn’t come in as expected.

It’s why they greeted spring with such deep and overwhelming joy. It’s why there were May Poles.

If you have never read the poet Robert Frost, I urge you to remember or experience winter through his words. Every gardener living in a cold winter climate should have some paperback Frost collection laying within arm’s reach in the morning.

Gently step away from the device filled with infinite scrolling feeds by CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Facebook, The Daily Mail, The NYT, The New York Post, et bloody al. and find one of his poems written in winter. Take some time to absorb that which does not need to be said to be understood.

Frost did not pen “Man and Horse Desperate for Shelter Travel for Hours in Deep Drifts, Miles From Help”

Winter is hard. Winter is also beautiful.  We must both bear it and be blessed by it.

Trying to Play Both Sides of the Fence

Cause, here’s the thing. You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t complain that we don’t have real winters anymore and then lose your ever loving mind when a storm dumps 18 inches in 24 hours. In summer, when they’re telling us that we’re about to experience a horrific, historical and deadly heat wave that will best all heat waves and all records (even if it is only by a tenth of a percent) and that life is over, they can’t ignore two years of long cool springs that make the spirit sing.

marianne.willburn

🍃Opinion columnist @ahs_gardening 🍃Contributing editor @gardenrant 🍃Advocate for Curiosity, Courage and Joy in garden building. Virginia, USA, Z6b.

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Yes, the climate is changing.  Some seasons it does so with a slap, some seasons with a tickle.  Many of us are scrambling to keep pace with the change and adapt our gardening practices and life choices.  Some of us have experienced some degree of devastation brought on by weather events, and we have been laid low, and we have stood up again. But the more we allow ourselves to be assailed with unrelenting fear-porn – the more the weather is reported by terrified children and not mature adults – the more we feel helpless and lost in a constant state of anxiety.

Fearful people no longer believe in the human spirit to adapt, innovate, overcome, and grow.

Lose the fear porn.  It’s winter.  Let’s treat it like the adults we are.