A girl who works at the hair salon I go to told me the other day that she’s going to start manifesting good weather for everyone in Western New York.

That’s a new tool young adults are trying to utilize–using their minds and positive attitudes to bring about good fortune, success or better outcomes in their lives. It’s called “manifesting” and at this point any idea is worth a try.

If you’re game, your first exercise is to think only good thoughts about the weather. Bring it forth by believing it will one day be possible to take a ride in your boat, or leave the house without a coat, or get through a week without hail. Don’t build arks, build umbrellas big enough for your optimism.

There’s been summers in history where an entire summer season never amounted to much. 1816, in fact, after Mt. Tambora in Indonesia erupted, there was no summer at all here in New York State, the northeast, most of the U.S. and in many parts of Europe.

When June arrived, the leaves should have been thick and green, the rivers running high from spring melt, the soil warm enough to turn with bare hands. Instead, frost crept in just as the seedlings did, blackening the fields like rot. It snowed in July and while you couldn’t build a snowman, it was enough to shake even the most seasoned farmers.

People looked at the sky more that year. The sun rose weak, pale, often wrapped in a haze that dimmed its heat. Some swore it looked like a coin held up to a candle — dull and distant. Others said it was judgment or a punishment. Most folks didn’t bother naming it.

But what people remembered wasn’t just the cold, it was the absence of things. There were no buzzing insects, no thick hum at dusk. No berry stains on kids’ fingers. No long, slow evenings where the day just refused to end. Everything felt like it had been skipped — like spring had hesitated, and winter had taken the opportunity to slide back in while no one was looking.

Families buried seeds, hoping for a second chance, but nothing grew. The ground wouldn’t give. Livestock grew so thin that farmers slaughtered animals early because they might not be able to feed them in the fall.

The markets grew tense. Money passed hands quickly, but the shelves stayed bare — you couldn’t buy what the earth refused to grow. Word traveled slowly, but it finally came made the rounds: people heard a mountain half a world away, Mount Tambora, had exploded the year before, sending ash so high it hung out there for what seemed like an eternity, veiling the sun. No one here had seen that volcano, but people lived under its shadow.

The cold didn’t stop people from traveling. In fact, it started it. Some packed carts and walked west, hoping Ohio or Illinois might be spared. Others moved south. The mountains kept their snow well into August.

In Europe, things were worse. There were bread riots and food hoarding. In parts of Ireland and France, they boiled weeds and made soup from bark. In Switzerland, it rained for weeks without end.

Back in New England, sermons got longer. Most people just prayed it would end. But it didn’t end. By September, summer still hadn’t come. Just a narrow, gray spray of days that led straight into early frost. There was no harvest to gather. Just the simple act of survival. You stored what you could, mended what you had, and hoped the next year would remember how the seasons were supposed to work.

Some journals survive from that year. They mention the strangeness of it, the silence. One woman wrote: “We have had no summer. The months moved forward, but the warmth did not. It is a year of missing.”

That was more than two hundred years ago when people were more self-sufficient. Imagine how people would respond today in a world full of entitled people. The elite would find the warmest spot in the world and roost there till the moment passed. Us regular people would probably help each other–at least, I hope–and try to manifest better days with our hairdressers.

It’s been a tough spring. But according to my digital screen, things will get better, although there may be more rain. The people in the know, if you dare to believe them, say the next few months will be warmer than average, with the heat most pronounced in July and August.

Time will tell. Until then, keep the faith. You can always find someone who had it worse.