A Northern Soul Goes South

When bitter cold slaps me across the face and my heart pounds from hours of heaving heaps of snow, shovel full by shovel full, I ask myself: what haywire fiber of my being chose this life of winters in the polar vortex?

As I sit here writing this in south Florida—gazing up at peaceful palm trees dancing in the breeze—I ask myself again, why make camp in the arctic tundra? Why return to the subzero-forecast awaiting me when I could stay here dog-paddling in an 85-degree swimming pool surrounded by tropical trees?

You might say that Michigan is the yin to Florida’s yang. Two opposing peninsulas. One warm, one cold. One dark, one bright.

We shiver in Michigan, encapsulated by four frozen great lakes. Floridians loll in the warm embrace of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Michigan is decidedly not the sunshine state. Cloud cover envelopes Traverse City’s skies more than 200 days a year. But still, I felt a twinge of sadness driving away from a January blizzard toward my warm-weather getaway, navigating slick roads with a vice-like grip on the steering wheel. Because, to me, winter weekends spent snowed in are just as fleeting as blue-ribbon beach days in summer. Every season passes so quickly. I’m constantly chasing the bright spots in each one. 

It’s not difficult to find bright spots in Florida. It is an equatorial beacon, glowing with a magnetism that draws a steady migratory stream of Michiganders from north to south each winter and spring. I can see why; the Floridian sunshine is truly dazzling. Likewise, those rare sunny days we enjoy up north totally transform my posture, like a drooping plant that is watered and placed on a sunlit windowsill.

But still, I choose Michigan. Not for the cold, but for the variety and the challenge.  

There is a glimmer of warmth in every frigid, cloudy day too. And isn’t the warm blanket of sunshine sweeter after you’ve known the inquietude of bone-chilling cold? 

That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. Bundle up and enjoy these days of hibernation, my friends.