Weather the Weather....

“Whether the weather be fine

Or whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold

Or whether the weather be hot,

We'll weather the weather

Whatever the weather,

Whether we like it or not.”

----Anonymous, British poem

The poem above was part of the vocal exercises the cast would do to practice British accents at rehearsals for the production of “A Christmas Carol” that was just performed in the Jeremiah Lee Mansion. It worked for that, but it’s also a much lovelier way of saying, “Suck it up, Buttercup.”

Photo courtesy of Ramsay Hoguet via All Marblehead Happenings Facebook

 

It’s normally this time of year that I start to kvetch about the weather. It’s cold. Yes, I get that we live in New England and it’s December and it’s supposed to be cold. Of course, I could live somewhere else, maybe, but this is home. Still, the other morning when I got up in the dark and came home in the dark, it was cold enough to test my frosticles. Or something. It’s about now that I start bargaining with the universe, thinking, “Well, OK, cold is fine, but no snow, OK? I promise I won’t complain about the cold, if there’s no snow.” As if somehow, I had the power to negotiate weather terms with Mother Nature. Every year though, it happens. We’ve yet to have a major dumping of snow (maybe the universe is listening to me?) so that’s good, but it’s coming; it will happen sooner or later.

 Last weekend, a friend came to town, driving down from her home in Vermont. In December. Yet it didn’t snow there, here, or anywhere in between, which was a welcome change. More than a few times, trips have been cancelled because of snow. On one journey I made up to VT, it seemed that all was clear; until Bolton Flats. Bolton Flats is a weather anomaly, a small area where a rogue snow squall can blow up out of nowhere. It went from cold, crisp and sunny, to white out blizzard conditions in a matter of minutes. As the highway curved around the Green Mountains, there was a pile up of more than a dozen cars and one semi, which was sideways across the road, with the cab firmly embedded in a tree. Bumpers were hanging off cars, fenders were bent, but no injuries, thankfully. Whether we like it not, there will be always be some kind of weather mucking up plans.

My son’s scout master used to say that the weather doesn’t determine what they do, only what they wear. Easy for him to say, scouts are always prepared. I can’t get through a winter without losing one glove from every pair I own and going arse over teakettle into a snow bank because my bootlaces came undone. Boy Scouts go hiking in this weather, some of them sleep in tents, in the snow! I need twelve extra blankets, thick socks, five loaves of bread, three gallons of milk, and a hot toddy every time the weather report even mentions snow.

But the poem is correct, and not just about the weather. There are so many things happening in the world right now, and most people are unhappy about much of it. Regardless of which side of an issue you take, it’s not always going to go your way, and there will be outcomes you can’t change. Then what? Sit in a corner and complain about it? That’s hardly the best use of your time. Sometimes, you just have to weather the weather, even if it’s raining down trouble, and you’re stepping in puddles of incompetence and attitude wherever you go. There has never been a winter that didn’t, eventually, give way to spring and better days. For now, the sun, when it does make an appearance through the grey clouds, is coming up later and going down earlier, giving us too much darkness and not nearly enough daylight. It will turn though, and then we can complain about the mud, or the rain. Summer will come and for many it will be too hot, or too humid, or not hot and humid enough. The ocean will be too cold, the sun will be too strong, and at least one BBQ will be rained out. And so it goes. Mother Nature can be a real Princess Crankypants sometimes, but it’s our job to weather it.  Suck it up, Buttercup.