A while ago I wrote a post about how surviving a difficult breakup is like a badge. I was never a girl scout but I like the idea. In fact my younger brother had his Eagle Scout Court of Honor a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t go home for it, but looking at the photos of him in his uniform and dark green sash with all those patches–the badges–I felt a deep admiration for him. Not only for the badges, but for the way he wore that (silly?) uniform, so earnestly. It was less like the pride you feel for a younger sibling and more like the respect you feel for someone older, who has a accomplished something great. I’ve never really felt that way about my brother before. After all, he is eight years younger. But I expect–and hope–to feel it more and more.
As we come to the close of another muggy summer in New York City, I’ve been thinking about how the ability to endure weather is another badge. One of the first things people ask me when they learn I’ve moved here from California is, “How do you like the winters?” or less often, but often enough, “What do you think of this humidity?”
I’m not really sure what’s behind these questions, but they sound like a challenge. I wonder if my inquisitors relish the idea that this fragile Californian might be broken by the extreme Northeast–dramatic rainstorms and cloying heat in summer, biting winds and merciless sleet in winter. I derive some enjoyment from explaining that I spent a year in Montana, which whether or not they know about the heavy winters simply scares New Yorkers who were unsure such a place really existed (Is that a state? where is that exactly?).
Then I really shock them by describing the climate of Seattle where I also spent a year and which, being even farther away than Montana, has seemed to them like a rumor with a football team. “In Seattle,” I tell them, “the sky is a flat gray from November to June, as if it is perpetually four o’clock. And it never truly rains, it’s just very wet.”
Finally, I tell them, I lived in LA for four years. This has nothing to do whatsoever with weather since the climate is generally quite nice. LA is simply a scary place, and deserves its own badge of survival.
The point is, I may be from California, but I know bad weather.
Why do we engage in this game of weather one-upsmanship? What chord does it touch in our egos? Is it about being tough and battling the elements–that timeless struggle? Is it meant to emphasize one’s status as a native of the region?
Perhaps in a world so obsessed with eliminating uncertainty and feeling in control, it is a point of pride to say, “I choose to live where I want and accept that there is nothing I can do to change this.” As a corollary, when people ask me how I deal with the prevalence of earthquakes in California, I say I am actually excited by the idea that the earth is still moving and changing, independent of how we might abuse it, and indifferent to our efforts to control it. Even if you don’t believe in God, there is something bigger than us at work here and that something is called plate tectonics.
Whatever the reason, not everyone chooses to pursue this badge. My own grandparents turned theirs in when they moved to California from New Jersey after a particularly bad snowstorm in the late forties. And it doesn’t seem right that the badge be given to those who hate the weather where they live but are scared of the discomfort and unfamiliarity that moving brings.
I think the badge belongs to those who deem the weather a worthy adversary. These scouts live where they want and rather than complain about the weather, delight in stories of its fiercest attacks–heat waves and blizzards–and of their own valiant survival. Maybe the Northeasterners who ask me how I like the weather out here are simply displaying their badge. I like to surprise them by revealing that although I’m not from here, I’ve got it too.
Leave a Reply