Winter is on its way. Here in the New York area, where I live, and throughout the Northeast, we can expect a few perfect days of cold, clear air and snow that sparkles in the sun; but the season’s dominant notes will most likely be rain, overcast skies, bone-chilling winds, an Arctic storm or two and more rain. For all of us who have relied on outdoor socializing to maintain our sanity this year, cherishing our walks in the park and our socially distanced stoop conversations, the change in the weather feels like the final affront. The pandemic grinds on; democracy seems to teeter on a precipice — and now we won’t even be able to get outside, to breathe fresh air and see our friends and neighbors. Or will we?
I don’t have any new solutions for the pandemic or for the politics, I’m afraid, but take it from someone who grew up in northern England: Terrible weather does not mean you don’t get to socialize outdoors.
If a little thing like driving rain stopped British people from enjoying a day at the seaside or a hike in the hills, they wouldn’t only have to stay indoors all winter; they’d have to sit out half the summer, too. And I might never have known the joys of the Yorkshire barbecue, in which it was sometimes my appointed role to hold an umbrella over the grill while my father tended to the sausages and burgers — because a barbecue had been planned, damn it, and so a barbecue was going to take place. Nor would I have experienced the thrill of pitching a tent at night, high on a Lake District hillside, then waking the following morning to the breathtaking spectacle of — well, of some fog, to be honest. Still, at least it wasn’t raining! Or not enough to stop the portable gas stove from functioning, anyway.
There’s a sardonic joy to be found in such moments, also visible in the faces of vacationers huddling under the awnings of ice cream parlors in tourist towns, or zipping their fleeces up to their necks, to better enjoy an afternoon’s sunbathing at Scarborough. Perhaps there’s even a kind of romance. (It took me a while, upon moving to America, to realize that a “rain date” was a tactic for avoiding getting wet, not an intimate rendezvous in the drizzle.) And then there’s the great secondary benefit of all bad-weather outdoor activities, entirely absent from the good-weather variety: After a bracing experience of wind or rain, you get to come inside, warm up, dry out, and get cozy with a hot drink that would have held far less appeal if you hadn’t been frozen or drenched to the skin moments earlier.
