The Sun Don’t Shine Here

Do you love blue skies? Sunshine? Warmth?

Are you at your best when outside, the wind in your hair and sun on your skin?

If you want to be happier, healthier, hotter, tanner, funnier and smarter…

Don’t move to western Pennsylvania.

Seriously. I can count on one hand the number of sunny days we have had in 2021. The sun is perpetually hiding underneath it’s cloudy blankets, like an angsty teenager refusing to get up for school. When it does snow, it’s just the sky hurling out angry spit-ball snowflakes. It’s certainly not “pretty”.

But most of the time, we don’t even get snow. We get pissed-off winds. Bullet-like rain. Black ice that will break your butt and shatter your pride when you inevitably slip and fall on it. (A friend told me yesterday that it’s a right-of-passage for students to eat it on the sidewalks at our college.)

Basically, Creation is trying to drive humanity away from this patch of the earth. So why are people still living here? Why haven’t we run for the sunny, warm, hills? I have a theory.

These Western PA-ers are so stubborn, so obstinate, so hard-headed, that they have come to see the elements that make life difficult as a sort of opponent. An enemy. One whom they can only conquer by screwing up their fists and digging their heels in and furiously, staunchly, ignorantly, making this hellscape home.

I know this because, unfortunately, I have done the same thing.

It’s not like I wasn’t warned what going to school in Beaver Falls would be like. The first time I visited my college, the sky was pissing a frigid rain that soaked my socks and trickled down my back, despite having on multiple layers. Yet here I am, three years later, still stomping my way through six-month-long winters.

The only way to keep your sanity around here is to actively and aggressively defy the weather.

This is one of the reasons I go on walks. Yes, even when freezing cold wind is wrestling me to the ground. And when hail is pelting me so hard it feels like I’m getting shot with a bb gun. And especially when the sun is giving me the finger and insists upon burying itself under layer upon layer of clouds.

I just keep walking.

I used to hide away inside in the winter. I hate being cold, so it felt more logical. It’s warm inside. There’s blankets and coffee inside. Just sit and wait for summer to come again.

But waiting is obnoxious. It’s like saying, “Nah, that’s cool Sun. Just don’t show up for work. You don’t have to do your job. Whatevs.” But it’s not whatevs.

See, too much of life is just waiting. Waiting for classes to be over. Waiting for the weekend to come. Waiting to read or write or paint until after I’ve finished doing homework. Everything’s about survival. Put food in mouth. Go to class. Do work. Come home. Sleep. Repeat. There’s no time to slow down, to enjoy things, to simply exist.

And when it’s achingly cold outside and I can’t feel my fingers and I haven’t seen the sun in a week… yeah, that’s when I just want to keep my head down and go through motions and just survive.

But I can’t let Weather win like that. I will not just curl up into a ball and wait for summer. Winter won’t get the satisfaction of beating me.

So I walk. Because I like slowing down and enjoying things and simply existing. I like being outside and with blue skies and warmth and the wind in my hair. And I won’t wait for summer to come to get to do that.

I cannot fathom why anyone would want to live here. But since I do live here… I refuse to be bullied by the freakin’ elements.

I’m gonna go on walks. Even if it is 4 degrees out, with a windchill. And I’m gonna enjoy it.

Suck on that, Mother Nature.