It Doesn't Snow in California

“Character building” is a common phrase among Midwestern parents, most often as a response to their children’s complaints about the weather. The excuse for being forced to go to school during the snowstorm, why the driveway needs to be shoveled before the sun comes up, the consolation for the black-ice induced bruise: “It’s character building.”

Illinois is 2,000 miles away. I am in California. It’s raining. School is cancelled. Does this get called character building? High school me, stomping through sidewalks left unplowed on the route to school, says no. The inconvenience of weather is perhaps an underrated force of humility, available to ground any sense of ego inflated through months of sunshiny days.

A fireplace becomes warmer when it’s melting ice off of thick boots, heating toes from under two layers of socks. Words on a page are somehow more inviting when the streetlamps are dimmed by a fresh layer of snow. A specific feeling of community found in being snowed in, stuck at a friend’s house with the power out. A notion of togetherness unable to be recreated, bound by the collective and anxious hope of school being cancelled, enveloped in snow day rituals and prayers. These are the makings of my home, pieces of my childhood.  

I look back on what has made up my youth, on what has contributed to the person I am becoming, on what I get to change and what is so ingrained that it’s permanent. In the absence of weather, in the absence of home, what is it now that builds my character?

While it’s true that looking too closely prevents one from seeing and understanding the whole picture, there’s still something to be said for the details. Hot chocolate evenings, getting away with too many marshmallows. Or the first time driving alone, newly licensed without having learned the art of navigating winter-inhabited streets.

Remembering that the warm mugs of cocoa were in celebration of university acceptance letters, and that the icy drive was to pick up a friend after a breakup, result in a kind of personal essay on their own. To consider the moments where empathy and honesty were found and learned is powerful. To reflect on the instances that brought a sense of mourning or belonging is the place that presents the slow start of change, of growth.

I’ve started looking for the origins of where my character has been built, to not forget that the details make up the whole picture.

Being young and growing up feels both miserable and electrifying. Versions of pain and joy spark for the first time. Visions of a future, a life beyond a hometown, are molded through a tumultuous mixture of doubt and inspiration. Born and bred in an environment that cultivated creativity as much as it stifled individualism, in only the way that the suburbs can, presents a somewhat muddled initial outlook onto the rest of the world. Though perhaps appropriate. Gray shows itself more than black and white.  It is here that fragments of myself are found. The niceties and notables, times where trust was built or broken, the slow grasp of empathy infiltrating a tightly wound sense of self-involvement.

It is as intriguing as intimidating, watching myself change while intentionally finding the pieces of what I will become. Recalling moments that offered wisdom and explained feeling make me feel both closer and farther away to where I’ve come from.

Now that I’ve moved away, started somewhere new, the continued quest for identity is renewed. I’ve found that I identify more with where I come from than I thought. I take pride in the hellish winters, feel bonded to those from the Midwest, lamenting together over Chicago Februarys like a badge of honor.

There are no longer parkas and sleds. Scarves and mittens have been tucked away in closets. I didn’t pack them. It doesn’t snow in California.