THE GREAT MIGRATION

You’ve probably heard about the Great Atlantic Migration during the 1800s. And you indubitably know about the annual Monarch Butterfly Migration to Mexico. Serious, important, historic stuff but NOTHING-BURGERS compared to the famed January Migration from Maine to the land of palm trees, hot-pink Bermudas, conch chowder and mango margaritas. 

Do not get in our way!

Here in the Pine Tree State (the “way life should be,” truly and happily, until the mercury dips to 9F), we recently celebrated the Winter Solstice, aka the shortest day of the year.  That translates to: sunrise at 8:30 a.m., sunset at 3 pm., cocktails at 4 p.m., nighty-night at 6:30 p.m. Repeat until March 10.

Friends telephone from Naples. “Gorgeous here, 80 degrees.” Others check in from Palm City and Vero Beach. “Balmy breezes and temperatures hovering at 82. Perfect golf weather.”  Mr. Wonderful hears this and starts writhing. 

Clutching his putter, and looking as if the Dow Jones plummeted 450 points, he asks, “How many days until we leave?” Ten minutes later, “How many?” 

Right now there’s a Currier & Ives snowstorm outside my office window here in the Wells woods. We heard the forecast and knew snow was imminent so, like most of us left here, Mr. W and I stocked up on “milk and bread” at Hanny’s yesterday. (Local and truthful lore: Nary a flake falls before Mainers make sure they’ve got milk and bread on their shelves.)

And the Hannaford parking lot the day before a big snow? Remember Bagram Airfield in August? Truly, you do not want to get in the way of a Kennebunker wearing plaid flannel pants, a navy blue MAINE sweatshirt and Bean boots charging towards you in the soup aisle. 

Now understand this: I love winter, I adore a snow storm. I remember the pure joy of “snow days” when the kids and I would make Frostys and ice forts on the front lawn. 

This morning I remembered “reality” when son Chris texted from snowy, school-closed Ridgewood, New Jersey: “Wonderful! I’ve got Jen in the bedroom quarantined with Covid, Miles and Henry home from school, six work meetings on my calendar and my neighbor with the snow blower is on vacation in Costa Rica.”

Okay, but that’s New Jersey. (As Lin-Manuel Miranda sang in “Hamilton,” “Everything happens in New Jersey.”) But I bet residents there don’t have crampon ice cleats attached to their Merrill’s. Or a hall closet shelf overflowing with HotHands Stick-on Body Warmers. Plus a ready-set-go generator for when power goes out. 

So Mr. W and I are joining the Great Migration. Our suitcases have been packed since shortly after the crystal blueberry dropped from the steeple of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kennebunk on New Year’s Eve. I’ve been checking long-range forecasts for Monday, January 10 so often, I qualify as a snow consultant for Jim Cantore.

Next week: Vero Beach. God willing and the snow stops falling so Elite Airways doesn’t cancel.