Ailee Jones

The groundhog was right: There were six more weeks of winter. He’s such a sensation, though he’s only right 35 percent of the time. What else is revered as much for that low of a success rate? We should start just flipping coins for six more weeks of winter. In fact, I’m kind of obsessed with the weather (or the forecast, at least). But it runs in my family. I’m lucky enough to have two grandmothers and a mom who text me every time they see anything startling in the forecast for Brunswick: “Looks like it’ll be getting cold there!”, “Another snowstorm coming this week, look out!” or “My apps say it’ll be windy, stay warm!”

At this point, I can get all the forecasts I need from my family members. They compare their different apps, meteorological models and what the weatherperson on the TV is predicting versus the one in the paper, or on WeatherBug or AccuWeather or Apple Weather or The Weather Channel or eWeather or NOAA radar or the airport weather report or the radio or Weather Underground or Yahoo Weather. Seldom do I hear about the current weather. Even among my peers, conversations about the weather are geared toward the forecast: the future weather. It feels like we are perpetually waiting for the weather to change, especially in the wintertime. Perpetually waiting for the seasons to change. And I like the winter, but in late February, I find myself longing for grass and flowers. In the springtime, I want clear blue skies and nothing more than the rain to stop falling from murky clouds. Once summer comes, I can’t wait for the heat to end and for the leaves to start changing colors. And in fall, I just can’t wait for the first snow. Every season is the waiting room for the next. And I’m always waiting, never arriving anywhere satisfied.

Weather is the original small talk. I find that I reference it often—in the dining hall, sitting across a Moulton light room table to a friend’s friend, waiting for the mutual friend to show up, greeting my roommates in the morning, talking to professors in office hours and chatting with my bosses at work. And it’s small talk for a reason—the weather is safe. It asks nothing of you. It requires no vulnerability. The forecast promises that something else is coming, something to anticipate and hope and dread and fear and wonder. Something that will not be like today.

Monday, I sat on the quad. It was the first mild day of the semester, and everyone was out. Jackets were shrugged off and used as mats to protect from the ground, still damp from recent snowmelt. Faces, backs and bare feet turned sunward as if absorbing its rays, like supple leaves craving warmth. The sun shone on my dark hair, warming it, warming my whole body, even in the 55-degree air, which felt surprising after months of cold. Still, I couldn’t help but check my weather app to see if it would last.

Tuesday, it rained. It never really rained hard, but a gentle drizzle persisted until lunchtime. I walked down South Campus Drive toward my class in Coles Tower and marveled at the little creek that had formed near the curb, flowing toward the storm drain. Dizzy Gillespie played in my earbuds. I rode the elevator to the 15th floor with a man from maintenance carrying a ladder. Once my squeaky wet boots climbed the narrow stairwell to the 16th floor, I looked out the window at the fog-covered Maine morning. The tower atop Fort Andross poked out unspectacularly, separating the town from the river. The weather was unremarkable. I opened my phone and checked to see if tomorrow would be remarkable.

This really isn’t about the weather. Not entirely. I’ve unknowingly adopted this enhanced, borderline unhealthy habitual foresight as a way to keep my life moving. But in college, it moves too fast anyway. Truthfully, I’m trying to stay in the present. How do I know next Thursday’s wind speed and average barometric pressure, but I couldn’t tell you the temperature today? Or if the last time I went outside it was cloudy or not? Why am I not in awe of the fog and the rain and the sun? The weather now is the most extraordinary.

The 55-degree day on the quad, feeling of sun months after winter; the brightness of Dizzy’s horn at 2:24 in “Ozone Madness” contrasted against the muted sprinkle from the smoky sky—these things don’t show up in the forecast the way that they feel. No one, not the most skilled meteorologist, can predict how such bliss is experienced in the sun and rain by a sleep- deprived college student.

I’ve learned to anticipate everything except the present, but where’s the virtue in that? The groundhog was right: There were six more weeks of winter.

But I don’t think I needed to count them.

Tolly Kaiser is a member of the Class of 2028.