Every year in New England Someone asks me, "Have you been through one of the winters yet?" I re- member the way every year in Indiana the world would turn ice for months, the way that snow would block the roads and stop school and kill the power in our little house sur- rounded by farms for weeks at a time and we would live our lives by candlelight and pumped water. We would fill the bathtub and from it the toilet tank so we could flush. I remember summers spent mostly hiding in AC from the murderous sun and partly hiding in base- ments from the murderous wind. I remember when the weather hated me and wan- ted me dead, but also remember the way that ice turned the world to beauty and glass and wonder, the way that bathwater thun- derstorms would wet clothes to a perfect temperature that left them feeling like merely more skin. "Yes I have been through the winters before. Thanks for asking"