For Sanity's Sake, I Need a Break

This is ridiculous, but I have to take some time off from NYC blog reading (I will never really do that, but I feel I should). And DC for that matter, but I will never not read Kristie's blog. You see, I read Kristie's this morning and I saw the pictures of the snow and the Capitol and I thought how happy she is that there's a good coating of the white stuff on the ground. She likes the snow. Almost as much as I do. Almost. I read her post and was happy for her. Winter just isn't winter w/no snow and I know she was looking forward to this weekend's dumping. Then I hopped on over to several of the NYC-based blogs I read daily and the happiness faded quickly into a bitter, biting jealousy.

The pictures of Central Park and the Upper East Side, Brooklyn brownstones and familiar intersections pained me to look at them. It was as if every picture sunk a tiny fish hook into my heart and the barbs stung even more as I tried to look away. My winter has been downright balmy. There are palm trees everywhere. The breezes are generally warm. I went to the beach Saturday afternoon and got some sun while I started a new book. To some, I'm sure that sounds like a paradise, but to me it's just another day away from a climate that soothes me. It's amazing how much the lack of seasons here bothers me. I knew I was a "winter girl". Always have been. But, to have this kind of cold-weather withdrawl is not normal. It's beyond being a winter girl, more than being a displaced Yankee. It speaks to a fundamental something within my being that tells me I need to be in New York. It's as if I have Seasonal Affectedness Disorder, but in reverse. If I don't get a grey, snowy day soon I might have to start wearing sunglasses all the time and packing my undies with ice.

Pretty soon, I'll be back in Brooklyn. I'll be back just in time for the cold, rainy late winter/early spring. Just in time for the puddles that swallow your feet when you least expect it and the rainstorms that drench you on the one day you leave your umbrella at home. I'll curse it at the time, but later when I get home after a long day, I'll be glad that my area code is 718 and my upstairs neighbors are stomping around and my girls are in the kitchen putting water on for tea and my hissing radiator is warming my room with that old-fashioned warmth. I just wish the man & I were going back at the same time. As is stands now he'll be here for a few months longer after I move back up North. Which is good for him. He loves warm weather. But I'll be back there, in my element, wishing I had him to share a cold March walk with. Wishing that by the time he gets there the market at Union Square wouldn't have stopped selling hot cider on the weekends months earlier, back when the Spring came and the flowers started their reach for the new sun.