Winter Without a Pulse

January used to mean layers. Serious layers. The kind where you dress like an overstuffed sausage just to take the garbage out, then question every life choice that led you to this moment. Mid-January in Canada is when winter stops flirting and commits. The cold has settled in, snowbanks have personalities, and your nostrils freeze shut on impact.

This year, January means something else entirely. It means shorts. Actual honest-to-goodness shorts. Christmas in flip flops. Skimming the pool instead of the driveway. Laying towels on lawn chairs instead of chiselling ice off them like an amateur sculptor. My body is deeply confused, like it woke up late, missed a connecting flight, and is now somewhere tropical with no idea how it got here.

As Canada enters its coldest time, Costa Rica has begun it’s dry season, the hottest time of year. The contrast is staggering.

Physiologically, this is a full-on system reboot. My brain keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, or the other mitten. I still reach for a hoodie that’s nowhere to be found in the morning, out of habit, then realize the only chill is psychological. Being shirtless 90 percent of the time feels slightly illegal, or at least morally questionable for a Canadian in January. Somewhere, a toque is weeping.

Then there are the bugs. In Canada, January is the great equalizer. Everything that crawls, buzzes, bites, or generally makes you question the natural order of things is either dead, hibernating, or writing memoirs about summer. Here, the flies are still clocked in. Spiders are doing renovations. Ants are running logistics like a well-organized union. Nothing has received the memo that winter is supposed to be a hostile takeover.

It messes with your senses. Your skin expects cold. Your lungs expect that first sharp inhale that makes you feel alive and slightly betrayed. Instead, the air is warm and forgiving, like it is saying, “Relax, we are not here to hurt you”. My pores do not know how to respond to this kindness. They have lived a hard life.

And yet, as strange as it is, there is nostalgia sneaking in. I miss snow, just a bit. Not the back-breaking shovelling or the windchill that finds places on your body you did not know existed. I miss the quiet snowfall, the kind that hushes the world. The way trees look dressed up, like they are attending a formal event. The crunch underfoot on a cold walk, when everything feels clean and still. Winter has a way of forcing reflection. You cannot rush through it. You either slow down or get humbled.

Here, instead of snowflakes, I am taking photos of toucans like a tourist who swore he would not become one. Scarlet macaws fly overhead in colours that look fake, like nature got bored and cranked the saturation knob. Monkeys crash through the trees like teenagers who have discovered caffeine. Parakeets and Great Kiskadees have a shouting contest. It is loud, alive, unapologetically busy. Winter whispers. The tropics shout.

I am not rubbing this in, I promise. I know January back home is no joke. I have lived it, cursed it, respected it, and occasionally had words with it that are not fit to post here. This is not about better or worse. It is about different. About the strange feeling of being out of season with yourself. Like tanning naked to a memory of snowfall.

What surprises me most is how much winter shaped me without my noticing. It taught patience. It taught preparation. It taught appreciation for small comforts, like warm coffee and dry socks. Here, comfort is abundant. Warmth is assumed. The lessons are different, but they are still lessons.

So yes, it is weird. Wonderfully weird. My body is suntanned, my calendar says January, and my soul is doing mental gymnastics trying to reconcile the two. I miss winter, but I am grateful for this pause from it. Turns out you can respect winter even when you are not in it, and you can enjoy the tropics without forgetting where you come from.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go explain to a spider that January is supposed to mean something. Hope he understands quickly ’cause I’ve got to take those shorts off and go for a dip in the pool.