Both of us shade tree philosophers, he gave several pragmatic and stoic lines to use, the best being, “Winter demands you show your character.”
This is much better than telling warm weather people to shut their pie holes, suck it up and brave the cold as I braved last summer, without a word, without a derogatory comment, without a snide social media post.
Even when I locked my keys in the car on the hottest day of summer, I did so like the warrior monk I am trying to become, as I waited for the locksmith, my head protected with my Sam Snead straw hat as the sweat poured and the sun nearly cremated the pavement.
This is because I am a winter person and I accept all seasons for what they are and what they bring.
Winter demands you show your character.
I think most summer people want life to be easy, a Jimmy Buffett ballad of rum and flip-flops that dirty and hurt your feet instead of a complicated Led Zeppelin number like the Immigrant Song, a song of hardened, bearded Norsemen and the struggle to reach home.
Summer people's solution to life is to slap on a grungy T-shirt, worn pair of shorts and sandals that show off their ingrown nails and callouses. Winter people are deliberate, dress with planning and layer to the circumstances around them.
“If you don't know the depths of your despair, you can never know the ecstasy that goes with the pleasure,” my friend said.
Summer people want instant gratification, they don't understand that winter is the healing surgeon, laying gentle hands upon the land, helping it recover from the stress it endured from farming, letting its raw winds blow fierce at times to freshen the air and renew the soil so growth can occur during the spring and summer.
Winter demands you show your character.
Summer people, not even a month into winter, began showing their lack of character upon the polar vortex's impending arrival as a friend and I bundled up to watch the BCS Bowl Game outside on the deck, a Jack London fire going as the winter winds began to lash.
The winter winds would overtake us by the second half, where we then finished watching the game in a balmy 44-degree garage.
Summer people scoffed at us, called us idiots, but who showed their character?
“You can only enjoy your pleasure of the season when you contrast it with the pain,” my friend told me.
As I have shed unwanted weight over the last few months, so much that a tightly cinched belt is a daily requirement, I look forward to seeing how this coming summer compares with the ones past. I will do so stoically, without a pause to say, “It's not the heat, it's the humidity,” and take in the sights of the instant gratification summer people, some who nearly strip naked when they really shouldn't, some who bask outside to bake themselves without regard to the inherent dangers thinking that tanned, leathery hide will last a lifetime.
Whereas I will play it safe, maybe hit the golf course on occasion and check myself for ticks and other foul summer insects, I will also bask outside in silent glibness, watching those who expose body parts that shouldn't be exposed. I will be doing this in the kindest way I know, not telling them to shut up because winter demands you show your character — Lance Martin
