Photo by Federica Giusti on Unsplash
It was a winter night and I walked out into the night air. I was wearing a light trench coat over a sweater with a tank top underneath. The cold frigid air flashed against my warm skin and promised an unrelenting assault on my person. It was a cold winter. Snow capped the surrounding mountain ranges. One range to the North high and mighty, the range to the South low and manageable. The perfect conditions combined to create a living freezer. A combination of darkness, a clear sky and cold earth. I barely noticed the bright and glimmering stars above me, I was so taken aback by the intense cold. I took off my coat and my sweater and let the cold cover the hot, bare skin of my arms and neck. To much clothing had created a warm environment that didn’t jive with what was going on around me. It felt good to equalize the sensations and let the cold even out what I was feeling. I walked over to the tea shop to meet my friend. I imagined that I left an invisible trail of warm steam coming off my body that would soon be exhausted as my body temperature began to descend and merge with the night air. First, my skin would become cold and then the superficial blood flow found in the underlying capillaries. The cold would not stop there, it would penetrate and stiffen my muscles and then get to my bones. But I arrived at the coffee shop before that happened. I entered the warm fragrant store front and the cold air was replaced with warm currents flowing across the room from bodies and the running equipment in the room.
“Aren’t you cold?”, my friend asked me.
“Yes, that’s the point.”, I replied.
My friend didn’t press the issue. We ordered our hot drinks quickly, chose a table. We turned to the matters at hand and for a short time forgot about the cold. But when the discussion was over, it was time to go outside again. This time I put back on my sweater and coat and headed out. The cold was still there and it was there through the night. I lay in my bed and it still did not subside. I would get up and turn up the heat and the air would temporarily warm, but as soon as it clicked off, the cold returned. I shivered under my blankets and pulled the sheet over my face to warm my cheeks and the tips of my nose. I tried to think of places that I could move to that wouldn’t be cold in the winter, which was ridiculous, because I already lived in one of the Southern most regions of my country. I realized I would have to immigrate to somewhere closer to the equator if I wanted to stay truly warm in the winter.
I can only write this now, because I’m finally warm. It took a few weeks. Here in Southern California, winter hits fast. The temperature drops overnight and then stays low for a few weeks to let you know winter has come. But then after a few weeks, things even out, the sun continues to shine and it gets warm again. It’s colder inside than out. I found myself huddling under blankets, with the heat blasting and taking hot showers, only to realize after having to run an errand, all I had to do was walk outside to get warm. This Winter began with torrents of rain. The precipitation took the form of snow up on the mountains and created a gorgeous scene worthy of a masterpiece portrait. So, how cold was it? 44 F during the day. Quite balmy compared to some parts of the world, but the rainclouds blocked the sun and cast a dark, gloomy shadow across the normally bright blue skies. But at night the skies would clear and the sky would glitter with stars. The cold seemed to polish the diamonds that hung in the sky and make them brighter. And then the clouds spent themselves, the skies cleared and the afternoons became warm. We were back to tee shirt weather in January. There would be a few more rounds of chilly blasts that would eventually evolve into a persistently warm Spring and then a nice hot summer. The heat would persist past October and then we would begin the cycle again.
And now we are on the Eve of March. February is a full month this year and tonight the planet Venus and the Moon have a love rendezvous in the sky. This night is supposed to be auspicious for lovers. More importantly, it’s a warm night-81 degrees and humid and feels as if a soft rain is making it’s way in. The frigid days of December are a distant memory and my night of reveling in the cold. I decided to go outside and gaze at the sky. The trees and small animal life hummed in the backdrop and above us lie a night sky strewn with sparkling diamonds. To the West was the brightest of them all, Venus, just hanging out with the lovely crescent moon. In love, warm and promising the summer.
Photo below by JoelValve on Unsplash
