Why is the weather a conversation starter? I can think of better ways to initiate a conversation. Yet the first thing anyone ever asks in a conversation, besides salutations, is “How’s the weather?” The weather literally is just there to exist. It’s a thing that happens outside, something that you live with no matter what. You walk out your front door, and you accept it, like the sky is blue and time moves forward.
When you have lived in Vermont for about a year, however, the weather suddenly becomes something else. Especially when the weather in Vermont is not what everyone around you expects it to be. Vermont is like a beginner’s guide to the North Pole; it’s not as bad as the North Pole, but it’s bad enough for you to reconsider your decision to travel north instead of south for college. Or at least that’s how my mother described it to me.
But my mother didn't account for Vermont's unpredictability. Today it’s supposed to stay cold in Vermont, not rise up to sixty degrees. Today it’s supposed to rain in Vermont, not suddenly turn into a five-minute severe blizzard. Today it’s supposed to snow, not dissolve into slushy sleet. During my first year of college, the weather became a bad guessing game. Or at least that’s how it seemed.
Now when I go to class, or see someone I haven’t seen in a while, the weather can be the best part of the conversation. It’s become that crazy hyper kid that does unpredictable things for no reason. You want to talk about it like you talk about that politician that said that crazy stuff last night. You lean closer and tune in, waiting to throw in your one-sided opinion, based on the fact that you lived your entire life seven hours away from Vermont, and you’ve never experienced weather below five degrees. You have just got to talk about the weather; it’s been out of whack lately!
The best, and worst, part is talking about the weather with my parents back home over webcam. They have no idea how cold Vermont can get. So I exaggerate some details and tell them of my never-ending suffering and pain, trudging through the bitter, biting cold, in the valleys of Northeast America. It’s like I’m an adventurer in Alaska, and the cold is the obstacle that I have overcome in my adventures out in the wilderness.
The bad news is that my parents then proceed to talk about how unusually warm it has been back home in New Jersey. Sometimes, when it’s thirty degrees in Vermont, my parents are reveling in seventy-degree heaven. They’ll brag on like they’re chilling in Florida, and I’ll be sitting in my increasingly chilly room, moping about what could have been. But I shouldn’t complain, my parents tell me; I chose to come up to Vermont instead of shimmy down to a Florida college. I remember this, and I feel just a tiny bit of anger towards myself. But only a little!
I’m not the only one upset, however. When I talk to native Vermonters about the weather, all I can hear is the disappointed pang in their voices. As far as I know, native Vermonters are natural skiers and snowboarders. When a Vermonter pokes their head out of their beds after the first snowfall of the season, the first thing they do is climb up the nearest mountain they can get to and ride down the slopes. So the lack of snow last winter was shocking to native Vermonters. You have taken away their habitat, and replaced it with mild weather. It’s a sad state of affairs for the ski and snowboard club at my college, as well as the ski resorts located all around Vermont. The world is doomed because the Miser Brothers won’t stop bickering about where it snows and where it warms up. Mother Nature is going to have a lovely conversation with those two.
Living here in Vermont is like living in mostly socially acceptable chaos. Figuring out what the weather is going to be like today is one big guessing game, with your dryness as the price for failure. Even though I’ve grown used to this weather, there’s still an air of mystery to the weather’s doings and whereabouts. People like to make a big deal about it, and they all love to ask the same question: “What’s the weather going to be like tomorrow?”
