Nasty, six-letter words of the season

With people nervous about another hard winter, there’s talk about getting out of town. Permanently. Which means moving — one of the most stressful things a person can do outside of buying a Pollyanna for under $20.

Even if you find a new location, job, house, friends and schools for the kids — every place has its pros and cons. We know the cons here — snow, traffic, the 76ers. But what about weathering the storms elsewhere — droughts, tornadoes, men with tans wearing white loafers?

Yet last year has inspired thoughts of tearful goodbyes and newcomer meetings. “I’m done with winter” gets more sympathy than “my in-laws are coming for Christmas.”

“Come to Paradise in Belize,” just popped up in my inbox; I hear it’s a great deal. As is Cuenca, Ecuador, voted a top place to retire in the world. I liked visiting there, lots of aging ex-pats learning to speak Spanish which isn’t easy when “hola hombre” and “oy vey help me” sound so much the same.

St. Petersburg, Florida, has been named a great retiree town. They have giant banyan trees you can hide in far from your relatives, and people say in their twangy way “aren’t you jealous” or “isn’t this paradise” or “we love the great outdoors but it’s too humid and buggy to leave the house.”

My sister is thinking of taking her family to Sarasota because she’s done with winter. I know other people going to Arizona or South Carolina or Guanajuato, Mexico.

“Good luck with that polar vortex thing” my airport checkin person taunts as I make my way home from a recent Florida trip. Then urges “don’t go.”

They must miss Northerners. They keep trying to recruit us into the cult.

But hands down, these places have one thing even snow buffs pine for by February: electricity. Forget about Congress or the President: There’s nothing more unpopular than power outages in frigid cold.

I can relate; I’m a human refrigerator, always keeping my organs chilly. I’ve talked about moving out of my house since I moved in 18 years ago. Then we laid a new roof and waterproofed the basement and the neighbors let me borrow sugar.

I did move to Colorado years ago but eventually moved back.

Is “I want to move” a euphemism for “I’m not happy anywhere”?

Duh. It’s cold there.

Others don’t want to move. I call them hearty which is a nice way of saying homey. No matter how miserable it gets, they claim to “love the change of seasons” or “could never bear to leave my family and friends” or “adore Pennsylvania because it’s so gorgeous in the fall” (best color change in the country!).

Maybe they’re right. Maybe in winter I can’t see my forest for the bare oak trees.

Is “I want to move” a euphemism for “I’m not happy anywhere”?

For vacation, there are lots of choices, but fulltime it’s either lovely in summer and arctic in winter, or lovely in winter and a face that looks like melted holiday brie in summer.

And the in-between places where you always wear the same mild-mannered clothes? Boring.

“Home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not in the things that tie you down,” says Author Pico Iyer.

Is he talking about lip gloss? Whatever he means, it sounds like something I could aspire to. Yet, even if you carry just the shirt on your back and a pint of courage, a person does need shelter especially when faced with three months of wind-chill and slush. How about the Sahara? It’s warm over there. What’s a little dust?

Moving might be a nasty six-letter word. But so, of course, is winter. Donna Debs is a longtime freelance writer, a former radio news reporter, and a certified Iyengar yoga teacher. She lives in Tredyffrin. E-mail her at ddebs@comcast.net.