Of Minnesota Wind Tunnels and the People Who Pull You Through Them

Recommended Listening:  Who Knows Where the Time Goes, Judy Collins

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time

A little known fact about me is that I have known three Minnesotan winters.

My parents dropped me off at my centrally located Minnesota college at the start of fall.  Leaves were thick and heady in autumn gold’s and red’s; the air was full of promise. 

My dad smiled proudly, patting me on the back—“such a lovely place to study!”

If I had known what was so soon to come, I might have said, “Ja sure, you can have it!”  But I didn’t and my dad drove home to Michigan that day, and let me tell you, Michigan is Copacabana to Minnesota! 

Three months from that date I locked hands with five friends as we tried desperately to get through an actual wind tunnel on a day that wind chills were measuring -90F.  In all honesty, you could only see the desperate fear in all of our eyes as we were so tightly packed into our winter survival layers, and so I guess I just hoped I was not clutching the back-end of a stranger.

There were many nights that I thought of cramming down dry ramen, rather than face that wind tunnel.  I tried to convince myself, at my most desperate, that dry ramen was like to a raw diet, and those were supposed to be wonderfully healthy!  

The main point is that I never did eat dry ramen, because no one was ever willing to let me.

I am writing this now, as the winter makes one more desperate plea for survival, because in some small way I owe Minnesota a thank you. 

Somewhere in that frozen tundra I found out what it meant to hold someone’s hand and laugh when your hair had just frozen to your forehead.  I learned that you will take many falls on thick chunks of ice, but that someone will be there to pull you up (and probably pull you back down again quite by accident!).  I learned that it takes more than one person to get through a wind tunnel, and that there are at least four people out there willing to brave it with and for you. 

As I fumble through my thirties, I look back on those days and the lessons I learned in those cold winters, and I think mostly of the love that sustained me through it all. 

So to all my family and friends, those in Minnesota and all over the world, thank you!