SOMEWHERE ON THE CANADIAN BORDER

I couldn't believe it. It's May, and I was actually cold in a sweater and a jacket today. But when I felt the wind coming off the river and caught myself stepping back behind the protection of my truck, I thought, Have you lost your mind?
Some might debate that topic, but my point is this. One of the reasons for moving from one border to the other was to get away from the extreme temps of the the desert in Texas. Okay, we went from one extreme to another, one might say. IE, the extreme high temps in the desert to the extreme low temps that we'll experience living in the most northeastern part of the United States. But therein also lies the difference. While the temps around here never got above sixty today, the temperature in the town we left less than two months ago was 103 degrees. That's not a typo. One hundred and three degrees. And by mid June, it could reach as high as 120 degrees.
Now, I know that there are some people who would and do live in that climate and love it. I am not one of them. I spent twelve years there, and never did come to terms with winters that lasted for three weeks, rather than three months, wearing shorts and T shirts on Thanksgiving and no rain to go with the thunder and lightening in the distance. I learned to deal with rattlesnakes, scorpions, isolation, and perpetual dust. I even learned enough Spanish to communicate with people in a community where the primary language was not English. But I never learned how to function once the thermometer hit 85 degrees. I never figured out why that was the line threshold. It just was. And it didn't matter if I was under the air conditioner or not. It didn't matter how light the clothes were. For some reason, my body refused to cooperate at that temperature. I don't know why. But I do know this.
This beat up old body that has fallen off of too many horses and been jammed up so badly that I could barely walk at times has no problem coping in an environment where most people complain that the humidity and cold stop them in their tracks. And yes, I have been here when the temp dropped below freezing. On a pre-move visit, there was three feet of snow on the ground, snowbanks were piled so high that we couldn't see over them, there was sand and sodium chloride on the roads, and if you ordered tea in the restaurants, they didn't ask if you wanted iced or hot--you got hot and you were grateful.
How did I fair in that weather? I put on two pair of sock under my snow boots, wore sweaters under my down jacket, with hood, and made sure I didn't lose my gloves. I loved every minute of it. The snow was still a good two feet deep when we moved, and I was disappointed when it began to melt. Until I realized that even though the snow melt meant warmer temps, it didn't mean they were that warm. It's still too cold to trust a garden not to get killed off to frost. I'm still wearing my sweaters that once got pulled out once a year, if that, and I keep my gloves and a hat handy for days like today when there's a little rain and a stiff, cool breeze coming off the river that doesn't smell like dust and isn't so warm that you can't breath.
So, now you know when I felt I was being less than appreciative when I tried to dodge that cold breeze today. It was exactly what I came here looking for. A breath of fresh air, that wasn't laden with so much dust that it immediately set off an allergy attack, and was cool enough that all of the oxygen hadn't been zapped out of it. '
Hey. Maybe that's why I couldn't function at higher temps. Dry desert air plus high temps equals lack of oxygen. Does that make sense? It does to me. Especially when I consider that all of a sudden I can remember people's names, and I can walk across the parking lot without stopping to catch my breath. Here's to life in the land of a much cooler climate.