I am here to establish my sanity for once and for all, at least in regards to one measure: the fact that my nostalgia meter for Chicago goes off the charts when they are having weather like they are having right now.   Here I sit recovering from the flu which has had me dealing with a fever of 100+ for 48 hours.  Recovering is probably using the term loosely, as I feel a little chill even as I write.  I’m in California. It is  61 degrees outside.  In Chicago it is 7 degrees and that is balmy compared to the past few days. The wind chill takes it to a level that is unspeakable.  One would think I would be thanking my lucky stars that I was able to venture out today for a quick run to the store without having to put on a space suit of sorts.

I am thankful.  I’ve said it on this blog before: I DO remember.  I DO understand that by the end of winter you’ve had enough.  What I don’t understand is why, every year, for 33 years,  it is January/February that makes me so homesick for my native Chicagoland. It’s not just Chicago.  Why is my son, Jeff, much to his father’s daily remarks that ooze disbelief, happy as a clam making his home in Minneapolis?  Why are he and his brother, Joe, having “temperature wars” on instant messaging, bragging about who is enduring the lowest temperature, pulling the “wind chill” card if necessary?  I don’t think it’s just about the actual temperature.  It’s about something much more subtle that accompanies that weather. This is my attempt to figure it out.

Two posts came up on my Facebook page yesterday and today.  One was a general tribute to Chicago. Filmed in black and white, it just looked like winter.  It reminded me of going downtown the day after Thanksgiving to go Christmas shopping when I was about 14 with a friend.  We took the train.  So exciting to be able to go on our own.  Such a beautiful city – the department store windows all decorated up for Christmas.  It wasn’t the same in the summer – it was hot, yellow, dirty, steaming.  In winter it was crisp and black and white, the only smells were aromas from restaurants that lured you in for a grilled cheese or a hamburger.  Come inside, get warm, eat, we understand, you’re with kindred spirits. Summer is all kinds of fun on the lakefront and the surrounding suburbs and lake country.  That’s so easy, though.  Does that grilled cheese taste as good on July 20? Probably not.

The other post popped up today of a Bull’s game “Kiss Cam” stunt where the Celtics fan was ignoring his girlfriend only to have Benny the Bull carry her off.  It wasn’t the kisses of the Chicago fans, although they were adorable.  Fans everywhere kiss on Kiss Cam.  It was seeing the fans, jackets strewn across laps or still being worn, the boots, the scarves, the hats, the memory of bundling up for basketball games – Carmel High School, Marquette University, the Chicago Bulls (when I had tickets) – frigid weather not stopping me from getting to any of them.  You layer up, pull on your warm hat, wrap a “muffler” around your face for the walk from the parking lot to the court (at Marquette that was a long cold walk from campus to the Milwaukee Arena  – fueled by peppermint schnapps on the way there and beer on the way back).  Once inside, you are INSTANTLY warmed up – by the crowd, the excitement, the pure energy of a basketball game.  You have been rewarded well for your bravery!  Add in a win and it’s over the top worth every plunging degree on the Fahrenheit scale.

It wasn’t just basketball, though.  It was that way, for me, for everything.  Going out with friends – usually “going in” to someone’s house for the evening.  Same preparation for the journey.  Same feeling of relief when walking in to a warm house and taking off all the accoutrements – leaving the boots by the door on the mat to let the snow melt, letting the coats and scarves and hats and gloves warm up for the return trip.  In between? Hot chocolate and popcorn and movies and board games and Let’s Go to the Races on Channel 9 WGN and laughs.  Those of you reading this from back home – you know who you are, you know what I’m talking about, despite your understandable complaining about what you are enduring right now.  So warm.  So home. So appreciated.  We were in it together.

I have made friends here, but it is possible that there are also friends I have never met here, because there was no necessity.  No smiles shared while shivering in elevators together just to make sure you’re still alive after the walk from the parking lot, no flash mobs for the purpose of pushing people’s cars out of snow banks.  Lousy weather prevented crazy expensive social life in the winter – it required “well, do YOU want to risk your life getting to MY house or is it MY turn to risk my life getting to YOUR house?”   I like to imagine even now little kids are making memories with their video games, tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch, their noses running but still feeling, deep inside, warm.

I know that things are not always what they seem.  I know that everyone did not grow up how I grew up.  I know there is suffering there this time of the year – people, animals, businesses, the psyche bears the weight of the long winter.   Weatherwise, California is heaven, there’s no question about it.  Like anything else, we come to take for granted what we have been given in this life. Surely, I have come to take for granted how lucky I am to live in a place where a trip to the beach, if only for a walk, is an option on January 8.  I understand that I romanticize the past, but isn’t that what nostalgia is?  How lucky I am to have that ability, to hold cherished memories in my heart.

I don’t know.  Still don’t think I’ve been able to put words on it.  I only know I miss my native Illinois so much this time of the year, and it’s not because of the WEATHER, it’s BECAUSE of the weather.