Mid-Winter Complaint

You’ve heard me whine before, numerous times, about the cold and the snow and living up here on the lake, all the shoveling and moving the snow around with no place left to put it; heard me question my decision to retire here, perhaps too soon, and heard about my new-found understanding of why my father moved to Florida when he retired. He said he was tired of the snow and cold, tired of shoveling, which made me chuckle. Other than a couple of years in the South Pacific during WWII, he lived in Maine his whole life, battling the winter elements, not out of enjoyment, but out of necessity - I know that feeling, and the soreness of overused muscles! I never heard him complain, though, about winters in Maine, but looking back, I expect he did, he must have, even as I do. After six winters here myself, I’ve come to appreciate his decision to retire to the warmth of the South, but much as I understand, and complain myself, I don’t see myself heading south anytime soon; but ... I might be tempted if this cold and snow keep up as is predicted.

I guess I spent too many winters away, some in less snow and cold, some in the warmth of California, some in other parts of New England even, but too many winters away from home, this home called Maine. Growing up here as I did, it’s easy to remember the sledding, the snow forts and snowball fights, skiing and snowshoeing, ice skating and toboggan runs on the golf course, across the eighth fairway along Lover’s Retreat Road to the swamps below, all the fun of childhood winters spent here; easy, too, in years away, to forget the cold and snow and work, though, of a Maine winter.

The plan had always been to retire back to Maine, eventually, when retirement became inevitable, much later in my life, at the “right time.”  We all say we’ll know when it’s time to retire, so as that time got closer, sooner than I had expected, sooner even than I had planned, my wife and I looked to Maine, to retiring here on the lake. I had my doubts about this decision, but the fatalist in me - “if it’s meant to happen, it will happen,” as my mother said often enough - threw out a challenge to those fates and set a condition, “if we can sell the house ...”, hoping, perhaps, we couldn’t and that would delay the inevitable. But we did. Things then just fell into place, so we packed up our lives and moved back home to Maine, ready to retire here at the lake, Lake Hebron, Monson, my wife’s hometown, small, impoverished, and isolated, Piscataquis County, a major change in our lifestyle.

Now, in this sixth winter here, more cold and more snow than “normal” this year, and more predicted before it’s over, I question, once again, my decision to retire, complaining, once again, about the snow and the cold, and am tempted, once again, to follow my father’s footsteps to the warmth of Florida, sunshine on a white sandy beach, sipping a fancy drink with a paper umbrella stuck in it, thoughts of snow a million years away. It’s easy to get this way in the cold and dark of a Maine winter, isolated and seemingly snowbound, just waiting for it to end and summer to return; even the black flies and mosquitoes, the heat and humidity, are a welcome change in our winter whining frame of mind.

Winter does end eventually, though; June will be here soon enough with its shorts and t-shirt weather, and May, green and lush and rich; April, too, the snow dwindling to dirty patches hidden beneath trees newly budding, and a snow shower possible to remind us that the seasons are beyond our control, to keep us humble. There will be a garden to clean and get ready, new flowers to plant, and green shoots poking up through the rich soil frozen hard these winter months, buried under three feet or more of snow. The ice will slowly “go out,” darkening into water still much too cold for swimming, but I’ll don my waders, pulling ‘em up snug, and get the dock in and the boats launched, anxious as I am to be out on the lake myself.

The flowers will eventually bloom and the leaves return to the trees, bringing with them the birds gone south, migrating away and coming home, the finches and sparrows, grosbeaks and hummingbirds, ducks and geese. The air will be filled once more with their songs, and our list of returned birds will grow longer as we mark the varieties gathering at our feeders, anticipating, though, that first sign of spring for us, a sure sign spring has sprung: the robins. We easily recognize their distinctive chip, chip, knowing they’re back, but still watch eagerly for their first arrival in our yard, a competition between my wife and I to spot that first red breast returned.

Yes, the cold is gone, the snow, too, and we have survived another winter, held fast and abandoned all plans to relocated to Florida with its summer heat and humidity, its throngs of “retirees,” those “old people” so unlike us hardy northerners, we Yankees - there’s always something to whine about. With winter finally over, we’ll just stay put, lounge around the lake in our bathing suits and coconut oil, or float around in our canoes and kayaks, stop and visit with the neighbors and summer folk spending the season here, coordinate a barbecue for the 4th of July. Summer evenings we’ll spend by a camp fire, the scent of woodsmoke rising and a sunset blazing around us, the loons calling unseen or popping up magically not ten feet from our dock, warbling their greetings. The eagles will ride the thermals above us and swoop down to snatch a fish from the water to feed their young, new life beginning here at the lake, and winter so far away, we don’t even think about it.

It will be back soon enough, and I’ll start to complain again about the snow and the cold and the dark and about retiring too early and about staying here another winter instead of going to Florida. I’ll have forgotten the summers behind me and the summers ahead, a rich reward well-deserved for the winters we must endure living here; this is but the cycle of our lives lived here in Monson, retired life here at the lake, here at Camp.