Surviving Winter--It's about

As an outdoor educator, one who really does know a thing or two about gathering wood and starting fires, running wilderness programs, tying knots, building emergency shelters and sleeping in snow caves-I can say that really? Those skills matter very little when it comes to surviving a long winter in Vermont.

It's not about keeping the heat up, or even on. It's not about paying propane bills, purchasing yet another electric heater, finding and using a blow dryer to thaw out pipes, pouring hot water into all the sink drains, tubs and showers. It's not even about keeping a woolen Army blanket in your car, a lighter, a sleeping bag, food and extra water. Not about keeping your car as full of gas as possible, having new snow tires, but keeping your vehicle turned around in your driveway to face the South, scraping snow and ice from every glass surface before daring to get into a frozen vehicle.

 It's much more complicated than that; it's about mental survival.

It's about making yourself crawl out of a warm bed and being able to see your breath vapors...taking your showers in the evening because it's just too damned cold in the morning and not kidding yourself into thinking about turning up the heat on work-day mornings; you are just going to be at home one waking hour today, anyway.

It's about not allowing the defeatist weather channel and the two weather phone apps you follow to turn your frozen brain into mush. And if you know what's good for you, you had better not listen to your co-workers talk about the weather more than 15 or 20 times a day. Learning to spend hour upon hour alone in your little office, back turned to the window and the street. You need to learn to see every single teeny tiny speck of hope as a harbinger of spring--the sun that peeks through the gray haze one hour a month in December,  the temperature difference between night and day in January, the short and dark month of February with Valentines' Day smack dab in the middle of it.

Yes, dress in layers (lest you perish), but have a little style! A fluffy down street-length coat with a hood can be accented with a nice, jaunty cashmere scarf. And everything you OWN need not be black. Your mood need not be either. Some people grow plants over the winter, religiously watering them and talking to them as if they are pets. Others do "family game nights" and order out pizza. They make every day special...living in their own quiet hazes of reality, humming little tunes, imagining what their gardens will look like come spring. Some folks even get together with friends in writing groups, book clubs or bowling leagues...anything to stave off the dread of yet another short day of sub-zero terror.

Surviving winter in Vermont is really only partially about not freezing to death.