My Kingdom for a Winter Coat

There are two groups of people in the world: those who dress for the heat and those who dress for the cold.

Heat people prefer shorts, T-shirts, linen. Light and airy stuff that wicks away sweat and wafts away from the body.

Cold ware wearers are the opposite. Give us things that cling like a newborn, baby. Cashmere, wool, fleece. All of it in darkest loden, deepest navy, inkiest black. Now, please.

On the heels of a heat wave, it seems a strange time to be thinking about winter coats. But since when has desire ever been reasonable?

As retail stores begin to shift their wares from floaty summer frockage to the heavier stuff — wool, flannel and plaid — a certain cognitive dissonance begins to set in.

Will it ever be cold enough to wear heavy coats again? While the answer is most likely (hopefully) yes, the momentary despair that clutches at one’s throat at the idea of never ever being cold is a natural reaction to the everlasting heat of August.

Anyone who has lived through a Canadian winter of old cherishes the fleeting heat of summer precisely because it was once so-short lived. Growing up in the Kootenays, winter was something to be endured. Making a fire in a woodstove the moment you got off the school bus was a life skill born out of necessity. But the extremity of the seasons also led to greater appreciation. The old Dulcius Ex Asperis (sweeter after difficulties).

When spring rolled around and the snow retreated like a defeated army, it was akin to being reborn. The first warmish day — when you could finally shuck off your winter boots and coat and emerge like a butterfly from a particularly heavy chrysalis — was beyond sublime. I can still recall the sheer bliss of wearing running shoes again. Heady stuff. Summer, in all its glorious brevity, was something to yearn for over eight months, then indulged with wild abandon.

When the autumn months marched back in, it was back to freezing your keester off. By October and definitely by November, a good coat wasn’t only a desirable fashion item, but a real and true necessity. A lifesaver.

Things are different now. Summer overstays its welcome. It drags into the fall and beyond. The heavier coats of yore, the kind that people used to wear on Antarctic expeditions or to climb Kilimanjaro, sit in the back of the closet, sighing softly to themselves and hoping that one day, when the temperature drops, their time will come again.

But what if it never does?

Summer heat used to be seasonal. It came. And then it went. In its warm embrace, things like shorty-shorts and ocean swimming seemed like good ideas. But now summer lingers uncomfortably. Worse than that, it has a habit of killing people. As the temperature climbs into the red zone, the idea of wearing anything other than a pair of saggy underpants seems inadvisable. But you still have to get dressed, find something that won’t make you any hotter than you already are. I seem to stick (heh… ) mostly to the same three items of clothing: a tank, a pair of crepe pants and a light cardigan. Everything else feels unbearable. If I was actually a bear, I don’t know what I would do, except maybe just find a mountain stream and stay there.

As the temperature ascends into unprecedented territory in certain parts of the world, the very idea of survival itself takes precedence. In nightmarish scenarios there are rising wet-bulb temperatures, which mean that even in the deepest part of the night, the heat fails to diminish. In these situations, the time frame of survivability shrinks to a matter of mere hours. The only thing to do is dig a hole in the ground and keep digging until you reach coolness or the molten centre of the planet, whichever comes first. I’m trying to make a joke because this stuff is beyond terrifying.

The last thing on anyone’s mind as the planet warms to horrific levels is the idea of a winter coat. But maybe that’s why I’ve come to cherish them. Like a lot of other things that are fast disappearing in this too-hot-to-trot planet, winter coats are emblematic of the way that things once were. This nostalgia catapults them into emotional territory, along with a slew of other things that are fast vanishing.

Yes, it’s probably a bit silly and overly sentimental to grieve for the things that you once knew and took for granted. Me, I miss the once plentiful, affordable greasy spoons where breakfast cost $3.99 for eggs, bacon, a slice of toast and endless refills of milky coffee. And department stores. In the Hudson’s Bay flagship store in downtown Vancouver today, the first floor is largely empty, and the few sales folk that linger in the twilight are like creatures on the verge of extinction.

It’s a very strange feeling to walk around, feeling like you’re living in a world that is already passed on. A very specific form of melancholy attends these experiences. I used to get this feeling mostly in interstitial places, transitional locations like airports. But now it feels like it’s everywhere. In empty office towers, empty cinemas.

Things fall away and then rise again, albeit it in a slightly different form. Bookstores, record shops, newspapers and ultimately all of us finite beings will slip away. We will leave behind our closets and shelves, stuffed with coats and boots, all the daily ordinary things that will be consigned to thrift stores. But who knows what to do with old shoes?

It’s one thing if people disappear. We were meant to do so, along with everything else on Earth. There is a season, after all, to all things. But what to do when the seasons themselves begin to shift?

What happens if winter vanishes, taking with it the pleasures and wonders of a cold world? The particular soundlessness of deep snow fall, the crystalline expanse of the night sky, the pleasure that comes from wearing your warmest coats on the coldest days and feeling strangely invincible as you venture out and about.

In Vancouver, a stretch of warm sunny days used to be a bit of novelty, because mostly it rained all the time.

But now, when the hot gaze of the impervious sun tips over the horizon, all I long for is coolness, damp, drizzle. A time of boots, hats, and yes, coats.