That’s my Middle West—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters…
— St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
We just got back from a few glorious days’ vacation in Minnesota, with a nice blast of heat to warm up my fog-chilled bones. And it occurs to me that the sharp contrasts among the seasons (the opposite of San Francisco) are part of what give Minnesota so much character, and anchor my own childhood memories and nostalgia.
So here’s a year of my Minnesota (conjured while I still can): the sights, the sounds, the sensations.
🎧 “Alex Chilton” – The Replacements
I lay supine on the fresh-cut grass in the backyard of our Merriam Park home. The scattered cumulus clouds slowly slide across the mostly sunny day, while a mourning dove’s coo-ah, coo, coo is equally unhurried, and the sheets on the clothesline flap-flop. It’s hot (mid-80s [Fahrenheit]), but not as hot as yesterday over at Fort Snelling where the sun scorches the long grasses, and the grasshoppers’ long, droning chirps let you know it’s summer… if you hadn’t noticed already. On such days, the sun-warmed sap of the white spruces and white pines emits this sweet ‘n’ spicy, uniquely refreshing resin aroma. But even when you sweat in the heat and humidity—at Grand Ol’ Days in June, at the Basilica Block Party in July, at the State Fair in August—you welcome it because it won’t last long.
It’s summer in Minnesota.
🎧 “Alone” – Trampled by Turtles
Then the days and nights grow more brisk…maybe a touch before you’re ready. The sky is a solid light grey and the wind whips through the trees. As you inhale, the cool air is mixed with woodsmoke from the first fireplace fires of the season. Bring on the Honeycrisp apple pies and hearty hotdishes (casseroles), and high school football under Friday night lights. Dry oak leaves skitter across the pavement, but the ones in the yard are raked into big tannic-scented piles.
It’s autumn in Minnesota.
Even when the January temps are cold enough to sting the nostrils, bright bluesky days still lift the spirits…and give you hope. Shinny (tennis ball, no high-sticking, no checking) with kids aged seven to 17 at Groveland Park’s outdoor ice rink. If we dressed properly—and we typically did—the cold didn’t intimidate us, and it made coming back into the warm house hygge.
Driving at night in a snowstorm as best described by David Rhodes in Driftless:
The pickup’s headlights did not penetrate very far into the blowing snow, a situation made worse by her inability to suffer the dizzying sight of warp speed interstellar space travel whenever she attempted to use the high beams.
Scraping our way down the icy slopes of Afton Alps and Hyland Hills Ski Area, and later running slalom gates under the lights of Buck Hill2.
It’s winter in Minnesota.
Winter habitually overstays its welcome—as Prince says, ‘sometimes it snows in April’—drawing groans in unison when it does. Of course, we couldn’t wait for spring either: street hockey on Rollerblades with half-melted snow and ice remnants at the edges, water trickling into the gutters. But everything is muddy and dingy until the first real rains thaw the earth, coaxing out the earthworms and releasing everything held tight all winter. And then the first mowed grass and the lilacs sweeten the air, and eventually the air is just warm enough to warrant opening the windows and letting the breeze freshen the house. The black-capped chickadee’s fee-bee—its true spring song—reassures:
It’s spring in Minnesota.
But the child’s Minnesota and the present one aren’t the same place, much as I’d love to step back into it. The Welsh have a word for the ache of longing for a home you can’t return to: hiraeth. I might still lie back on the fresh-cut grass and hear the mourning dove’s coo; it just wouldn’t be the same grass, the same dove…much less the same me (as Alice would point out). As Derek Sivers puts it, geography is four-dimensional: you can only know a place as it was at a time3. Much of the Minnesota I love is stamped with a when I can only reach through faded memories.
— ᴘ. ᴍ. ʙ.
Justin is technically a Sconnie, but Eau Claire is, what, an hour from the Minnesota border? I’m claiming him. ↩
The rule was that we practice at anything above -5°F / ~-20°C (windchill not factored), and I distinctly remember the pain of thawing a foot in the chalet post-practice when it was right around that temperature cut-off. ↩