“Why Do You People Live Here?”

For those not in Minnesota at the moment, we are undergoing some dangerously cold weather right now, with windchills hitting -40 degrees. I don’t even have to translate that into celsius, because it’s the same! This weather has been going on for most of this week, but should let up a bit by Saturday. After this, 10 degrees will be a beach party.

I was drifting back to consciousness and listening to the news chatter on my morning alarm yesterday morning. One of the voices chirped that, due to the harsh cold weather, national news crews were going to be around the Twin Cities during the day, asking why we live here?

Clearly, we ask ourselves that, especially on weeks like this one. It takes a certain kind of gritting your teeth to really roll out of bed and go to work in the freezing dark of January, when you know that 10 minutes of exposed skin will land you in frostbite territory. But the more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. My roomie and I had a chat about it on the way to work, and she was bugged by it too.

People live all over the world, and no place is perfect. Do people from the rest of the country seriously think that we’re surprised by this weather every year, and that we’re not prepared for it? Dealing with the cold is built into the culture of living here – our houses are insulated, we layer on clothes as a matter of habit from November to April, and there is an extensive network of skyway tunnels downtown, as well as underground tunnels between many buildings on university or work campuses.

Plus… there’s other things to do here! I certainly love Minnesota summers (some of the best weather anywhere, ever), but that’s not why I live here. Awesome arts and culture, great restaurants, family, friends, a billion opportunities to do a billion new things or old things.

Also, people could ask the “Why do you choose to live there?” about a ton of things. Florida (hurricanes), Arizona (searing heat), Seattle (rainy), Kansas (tornados), L.A. (human wasteland). But folks who live there will tell you that those things are occurrences, not the reason they live there. Most of them are seasonal, and during those seasons you adapt to the condition. If a condition is too extreme or irritable to a person, they usually go and live somewhere else if they’re able.

A coworker told me that he had friends come to Minnesota from New York City, and they had actually thought that the state was a year-round icy tundra, and were blown away by the green and lovely outdoors. Come on!