When the weather turns cold and the snow begins to pile up, we head inside, look out the windows, and delight in the change of scenery. We pull out the warmer clothes and address the procrastination around finding that box of hats and mittens. We bury the delusion, push our flip-flops to the back of the closet and bring the snowmobile boots forward. A couple inches of fluffy white on everything changes our consciousness about the space we inhabit and forces us to face new realities.
The cold and slippery landscape makes us reconsider the functionality of our automobiles. wonder about their maintenance, the age of the tires, we begin to think more broadly about where things are. Is anything in the garage going to freeze? Is there a bottle of water somewhere we haven’t thought about since June? Snow shovels come out of hiding, and bicycles get hung on hooks. We look more critically at our roofs.
Once the enthusiastic welcoming of the new season begins to settle in and the newness wears a bit, we realize we’re going to spend a larger amount of time indoors. We look with newly cleansed eye on the choices we’ve made and consider more shrewdly what we’ve put in our homes.
The size of our living space has shrunk from the vast and celebrated region with its beaches and dunes and paths to functionally — if we’re lucky — 1,500 square feet. Of course we wander outside of our homes in the winter, there are tons of spectacular things to do outside, but these are brief forays into an inclement and hostile environment that require return.
And of course spending more and more time inside staring at the same walls, the same interior choices, the same furnishings and art, and never-ending content on television, we begin to wonder if we can last through the cold dark winter without making some serious changes. We begin to really consider what we’ve surrounded ourselves with, and if we’re wise we make some decisions that refine the limited space in which we have to operate during this season.
In many ways this narrowed focus brings forward the importance of each individual object. The functionality, the utility, but also the beauty, the meaning, and the history of everything we have placed in our spaces comes in to crystalline view.
Why do I have all these towels taking up all this space? I wonder when I last wore this sweater? Why on Earth am I keeping three of these pans? (because one was Grandma’s?) Christmas giving is not the only reason that consumerism rises in the cold seasons. We are all recognizing needs, reevaluating our surroundings, and striving to make them more personal, warmer, more efficient, more pleasing so that our eyes and our bodies and souls can find joy in smaller spaces.
There’s a direct connection to the shrinking of focus and determining worth that occurs when we move indoors, to the larger idea of focusing on where we live as a city rather than as a state or a nation. For the last half year at least we’ve been considering ourselves as a nation, asking ourselves to define a vast morality and find a leader. and after the outcome of the recent election which left pretty much everyone exhausted regardless of their affiliation, it feels ever more important to take a season to shrink our worldview a bit and consider what’s happening locally.
The things you choose for your town, for your neighborhood, for your county, are as important as the things you choose to bring indoors. They represent who you are, they offer comfort, ease, economy, and bring joy to the smaller space in which you live.
The things you choose to push forward, uplift, and demand from your municipality offer you a source of pride very much the same as the choice of a good piece of art or a nicer rug for the entry. A visitor will think “I respect my place”, you think — and you’re right.
The things that we choose to preserve from our history, the things we choose to build and where we build them, all make our community more personal, successful, and unique.
As a relative newcomer to Traverse City, I’m consistently cheered by the decisions that have been made to date. I’m proud to have joined a community that values things like outdoor activity, communing with the natural world as a daily sacrament, a community that invests in expansion, but tempers growth with the expectation of strong local identity. A community that boasts of its commitment to the arts as an essential part of the fabric of our region.
As the current leader of City Opera House, and as we roll into fundraising season it becomes evident that we still consider this stately 134-year-old building to be an essential part of the fabric of Who We Are — part of the furniture here in Traverse City. Whenever I see a brochure or website about Traverse City I know I won’t have far to page or scroll without seeing the front of our City Opera House. For over 100 years we’ve chosen to keep City Opera House as part of the city in a place of pride. For this I am ever thankful.
As the snow gently falls on her red brick facade, our friends and families do the “clutch and bustle” below on Front Street. We look to see what entertainment will arrive in the heart of our city, and decide what we’ll pause our lives to come and enjoy — who we’ll invite to join us. I’m so proud to be shepherding the Grand Old Lady forward through my tenure here.
Please don’t forget City Opera House at your end-of-year giving, and choose to make absolutely certain that this beautiful public good remains a “part of the furniture” securely nestled in the heart and hearts of our coveted region.
See you at the theater!