The Upper Peninsula: An Abusive Relationship

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan (hereafter called the U.P.), is really one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It consists mainly of two colors: green and blue. In winter, you substitute green out for white, and blue for a slate-blue-grey. The only time it's not dichromatic like this is the fall, when it's an explosion of reds, oranges, and yellows. But the nice part of fall lasts about two weeks, so we won't really discuss it at this time. Instead, we will focus on the two primary seasons - the ones that account for most of the year.

Winter is a kick in the ass. It's beautiful, yes, but after about nine days of grey sky and it never really getting light, with no sign of the sun in sight, it gets old.

Summer, on the otherhand, is perfect. It's lush, vibrant, warm days with cool nights, pristine starry skies, and crystal clear lake water.

Evergreens and ferns, up on the Yellowdog Plains.

Sunset from Sunset Point.

Summer lulls you into this false sense of security. It tells you that it's great to live up here, and that everything is magical. It makes you forget about the months of drab bleakness, which hilariously take up about half of the year. But in summer you don't think about shoveling snow, or not seeing the sun for a week, or cold blustery wind that makes you wonder why you even got out of bed that morning. No. Summer makes you think you could stay in this amazing wonderland forever. That all of the prettiness is permanent (which, to be fair, winter is still pretty in it's own stark black and white way), and this euphoric feeling you have will carry over, come hell or high water.

Summer is when the U.P. buys you some flowers, and says "I'm sorry about the last seven months. I love you." It might even take you out for a nice dinner, and if you're very lucky you'll get a dance or two out of it. But then, after a short amount of time, Winter comes back. Winter storms (no pun intended!) through the door, yells at you about how you're worthless, and crap, and that you'll never feel good again. And Winter stays for months and months. It's lurking, every day, from November until late March, waiting to just kick you squarely in the face. It makes you question everything about your life - why you didn't go out and do something today, why you didn't get out of bed earlier to take advantage of the 8 hours of light, why you're constantly cold no matter how many layers of clothes you have on.

And despite all of that, I still look forward to winter in a really sick way. I've become trapped in an abusive relationship with this place. Even with my recent self diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder (I say self diagnosed because after living in a place that has sun 360 days a year, it was very obvious that, after coming back to a location that's closer to the North Pole than the equator, the big glowy orb of happy was missing from the sky and that its absence had a direct correlation on my feeling like a human god damned being), which was alleviated by taking Vitamin D pills every day, I still don't mind it. Dealing with winter eventually means that summer happens, and summer here is as perfect as a slice of Heaven pie. And that seems to make it all worth it.

I never was bothered by winter when I was a kid. Winter meant sledding and snowboarding and snowball fights and forts. I remember longing for winter, actually. I'm not really sure when the change in my head happened, but it did. And no matter how much I tell myself that it's not as bad as I think it's going to be, the perpetual coldness I feel, even inside, takes its toll. But I'm starting to face it with a sort of grim resolve. Now, it's more of an inevitable. I can hate it all I want, but in the end, the Earth doesn't really give a shit, and winter is going to be all over our faces anyway. And granted, I haven't been here for a full winter in a long ass time, but considering I'm going to a place where winter is going to be a large part of my life, I figured I should probably make peace with it.

So here's to you, winter. You selfish jerkface. You cold hearted conglomeration of months that make me lethargic and crappy feeling. I can't wait to deal with you soon so that you can crush every iota of Jo-ness that is currently in my body and leave me an empty, shmerry, shell of a person.

Critter tracks up a tree behind the house.