Opinion | My Minnesota: Winter’s coming, and we just moved from the equator

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

Until June we lived just south of the equator, in Tanzania. Every day of the year was around 80 degrees. The best way to get an ounce of cool was to go down the road and swim in the Indian Ocean. It was usually far too hot for me. But now we are facing winter and I miss the heat.

My two kids don’t remember a home other than Tanzania, though they were both born in California. When we learned suddenly this spring that we would be moving, I ordered warm coats for the kids. Both picked blue; one bright and one more smoky.

A timeline so far:

In June we arrived in Minnesota. It was warm, but not hot like Tanzania.

In July, my 4-year-old asked, “When is our [bed] net gonna be here?” My 7-year-old answered, “You mean our mosquito net? There’s not going to be a net because there’s no malaria here.”

Later in August we went on our first Minnesota camping trip, and my 4-year-old had a small thermometer keychain on his backpack. He checked it every morning. “It’s a little past cold!” he reported. It was still a warm August morning, but we were camping in a shady spot, and it was plenty cooler than Tanzania.

In September, school started. Both kids went to school wearing the blue insulated coats I had ordered. My son’s teacher, a wonderful woman with decades of experience, reported that he didn’t take his coat off at school. He wore it all day. He said he’s too cold to take it off.

My 4-year-old turned 5 in September as well, and started asking when the snow would come. In his mind, we had reached winter conditions.

I’m from here, though. So I knew that once October rolled around, even though it started to get pretty cold for me, it wasn’t yet time to turn on the heat in our house. When I was a kid we got a lot of our heat from a wood-burning stove; my mom will still tell you how low she had to keep the thermostat to not to waste energy. I grew up wearing layers and turtlenecks. Also leg warmers and windbreakers (but that was more on account of ’80s fashion).

So in October, feeling embarrassingly cold, I layered up to sit in my home office. I pulled on long underwear top and bottoms, jeans, socks, shoes, a wool turtleneck and sweater, a wool neck buff and a wool hat. Then I put a down vest on top. Just my hands were cold, and my mittens were too bulky, so I ordered a pair of handwarmers. I think they are for skiing, but for me they are for Zoom meetings.

So I went home and told my son that he can wear his smoky blue coat as much as he wants to feel warm. And I put on my hat. In time, we will all warm up.