Canadians and the weather

I’ve been thinking a great deal about weather lately. Atypically, however, all my thoughts were good ones. Easter weekend temperatures in Toronto rose to the mid-twenties, the average daily high for June! This meteorological aberration elicited more grins and giggles than all of the Easter eggs collected by greedy little tots in the entire province.

On Friday morning, as tender crocus tips pierced through the winterkill, I found myself grabbing a broom and cheerfully sweeping up bags full of left-over fall leaves. The street became alive with people I hadn’t seen since Christmas. That afternoon it was ME who awoke the happily dozing Glenfiddich and coaxed HIM into taking a little walk just as an excuse to stay outside. Back at home, I was thrilled to see that the emails had been flying back and forth and a golf match was organized for the next day. For Good Friday dinner I wore clothes I hadn’t seen in months and we enjoyed our drinks on the patio.

Our lives had been transformed. EVERYONE was in a fantastic mood and I wondered how long such euphoria could last. But then I remember that the very essence of being Canadian is accepting bad weather with stoicism and greeting fine weather by doing the verbal equivalent of crossing our fingers and turning around twice anti-clockwise. I realized that all of the recent conversations that began “Can you believe the fantastic weather we’re having?” ended with “if it lasts” or “but we mustn’t get our hopes up” or “let’s not put the snow shovel away just yet.” This reminded me of a story I heard recently.

While flying cross-country a few years ago, a friend was seated beside a government mandarin on his way to an international conference on global warming. This chap’s main mission was to convince the representatives of the other countries that they had to find a term other than Global Warming if they wanted Canadians to take any serious steps to combat it. Rather than spurring people into action, he pointed out, the thought of rising global temperatures was guaranteed to unite Canadians from Newfoundland to Northern BC with special enthusiasm emanating from Winnipeg and just about anywhere on the Prairies. They would be all for it! Global warming? Bring it on!

I wrote this, my second blog, last weekend but I didn’t dare send it. A true Canadian, I was afraid the weather gods would become aware of my weather–induced euphoria and blanket the city in snow. But today I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the mercury plummeted and I saw flurries of snow. All is once again right with the world and I can bask in fond remembrance of the premature spring of 2010.