Monday, January 19, 2009

The Eskimo have a word for it...


No, not 'snow' but Pibloktoq, an ethnopsychiatric illness, a form of winter madness or hysteria.

I'm not quite speaking in tongues or keening and ripping my clothes or running naked in the snow, but I have sympathy with the Eskimo who do that. I'm tired of being cold all the time. I'm tired of wearing 5 or 6 layers all the time and still being not quite warm enough. My feet are always cold unless I wear my Uggs in the house, as I'm doing now.

On the other hand, the picture is a view from our bed and it shows what I saw this morning as I opened my eyes. A beautiful, beautiful snowy world. And the COG and I went snowshoeing yesterday and that was lots of fun.

So my particular form of Pibloktoq is a little schizo, moving between wailing 'my feet are soooo cold' and thinking 'isn't it beautiful' moment by moment.

Oh well, Spring will come, just not soon enough.

2 comments:

Vivi said...

(Okay, I promise not to complain again about our weather. Highs of 50, with blistering blue skies and sun, and a genuinely fierce breath-taking east wind. My mouth is zipped.)

The Bride said...

No, you can complain. The weather is so subjective. We are hovering in the teens and twenties, while the midwest suffers with below zero.

It's all about how rotten it feels, not the objective temperature.