barn coats and neck warmers
Last week in NYC we had a blizzard with a foot of snow, single-digit temperatures and 50mph winds. It's funny. In Maine, that would be unexceptional, but down here it's just shy of the apocalypse.
It's like when I was growing up in NY and would laugh when Southerners had freezing weather and an inch of snow and everything shut down and cars were sliding off the roads left and right. Now, having lived through a half dozen winters in Midcoast Maine, I watch fellow New Yorkers prepare for storms and cold with bemusement. Ya call this weather?! Sheesh. Also their understanding of cold weather dress is so uninformed. Every time I go out in sub-freezing weather here at least one if not several people say something about my being underdressed, when I'm the warmest one there. They all have puffy parkas or bulky wool coats and all the accessories. I'm wearing what I wore to feed the sheep at 7am in 30 below in Maine: t-shirt under a double-thick sweater under a lined barn coat, plus cap, neck warmer and mittens. (The actual items. There's still straw dust in the pocket of the barn coat a decade later, which makes me smile.) I don't think it's possible to be cold in that, with all the layers trapping warm air. But they think you have to look like the Michelin Man to be warm.
I actually miss the severity of weather up north. It feels real. Something about respecting nature by being in a place where it still runs the show sometimes. As long as I can curl up next to a wood-burning stove with a hot cup of chamomile tea afterwards, then it's fine.
