Not Winter

I first saw Donna when she entered a building in the middle of a Chicago winter. Her coat was unzipped, flapping in the breeze. She wasn't wearing a hat or gloves. This sight is etched in my memory. I grew up in Chicago and knew the ferocity of its winter weather. Yet Donna came in from the cold as if the cold was not there. Who was this person? 

As time went by I learned more about her. She was from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Ishpeming specifically, where they had real winter weather; real biting winds, real drifts of snow, ice that lasts till June. Compared to that, winter in Chicago is not winter.

Pictured here, Donna Michels standing on an Upper Peninsula cliff overlooking the Lake Superior shoreline -- appropriately attired.