The Christmas songs and the winter songs are lying to me. There is no snow on the ground. No silver bells, no sleighs and horses, no cozy nooks in warm houses, no snowmen in the yard, no frost on the windows, no pretty snowflakes in the air. Instead we have, at least in MidAtlantica, a kind of sunny limbo of mild temperatures and no ice at all. If this is not the result of global warming, what could it be? El Nino again? The urban heat island? If it is the result of global warming, why are we still hearing the same songs?

I have the misfortune of having my perceptions set so that I notice everything. This is probably some form of aberration, some very mild form of autism or something, but when a song is in the "background," to me it's in the foreground. This is why I notice every typo, every misspelling, every deviation from the pattern. I hear the tune and I notice the lyrics, even if it is the thousandth time that I've heard that song. And I can't "tune things out" the way other people can. I hear it over and over again, and always notice it, and when I hear it, I know it's a lie.

In Alaska, it is really winter. In the mountains and the northern states, it's still traditionally winter. I remember, growing up in Massachusetts, that we experienced "traditional" winter weather from November to May, though we rarely had a truly "white" Christmas. The lake by my aunt and uncle's house used to freeze every winter, sometimes smooth enough to skate on. Now it hardly freezes over at all. If this is not global warming, even in my lifetime, what is it?

I am not trying to make some scientific or political point. I'm trying to make a cultural comment. To me, climate change is a mixed blessing. I hate winter, snow, and ice, and am only too glad not to endure it. But then I should feel guilty, because the bad climate change is going in my favor. I don't feel guilty enough. What I feel is a cultural wrongness. If our winter climate here in mainland USA is going to be different, then why do we still celebrate it as if it were snowy and cold as it was in the previous centuries? Why do people in tropical southern Florida put snow and furry clothing in their displays?

What I would like to see is a different way of wintering. As we approach the Winter Solstice, I'm with the Neo-Pagans in seeing the "holidays" as a celebration of a natural passage, the transition from Brumalia, the shortest days, to the beginning of the sun's return. We don't need sleighs or jingle bells or snowflakes, those holdovers from some idealized Victorian nineteenth century. And as the specifically Christian celebration of Christmas becomes less important in Western culture, we might imagine a Winter Solstice based on the celebration of light and energy, or the winter stars, or honoring fire as the Zoroastrians do later in the winter with their "Jashaneh Sadeh," or festival of fire. How would physicists or mathematicians celebrate the Winter Solstice, without any religious references? The climate both physical and social is changing, but the orbit of Earth and the light of the sun, at least in our civilization's lifetime, will not noticeably change. The angle of the rays tells me more about Winter than any number of obsolete and tedious "holiday traditions."

Posted at 3:04 am | link