The Weather Outside is Frightful

I appreciate glittery frost on the cobwebs and the beauty of leaves blown about in a winter gale, individually chaotic yet corporately streamlined as they whip around the barren trees; I love the clean softness of freshly fallen snow, the way it muffles the world for a few hours until it is inevitably sullied by warmth and humanity. I love that the change of weather changes the sound of the air from lush and deep to tinny and thin, that the cool, refreshing breezes of summer turn gradually into whistling - and later howling - blusters that pull at scarves and prod errant litter down the empty, echoing streets.

Warmth is something I understand. It makes me want to breathe deeply and go conquer the world. But I hate being cold. I hate the prospect of being cold. I hate, hate the sudden streaks of hard goose bumps that rush up my legs as soon as the wind licks my jeans. I hate the hot sensation of truly cold fingers; the numb nose; the red, raw eyes. I hate the wooden, stiff feeling that permeates my muscles as I attempt to thaw. I hate the feeling that I am one thermostat, one winter coat, one fireplace away from death.

When I lay in bed, warm under my comforter, next to my radiator (which is usually dressed in tomorrow’s clothes so that they are warm when I put them on,) I usually can’t help but think, “…But for these walls…I’d be dying or dead, frozen somewhere in a corner, unable to move.” It’s a bit ridiculous because, of course, there ARE walls there, and I DO have a radiator, and I am not dead or near-dead because of the cold. But those walls are a thin separation, psychologically and physically, between me and that numbing temperature. And a jacket and gloves, although effective, are an almost comical boundary between my skin and the elements: how easy it would be to be stripped of that protection and be rendered helpless, my thin skin against the cruel winter.

When my brother lived in Alaska, he got frostbite because his ear was not sufficiently covered as he walked between his dorm and the library. This would not happen in Hawaii. You would not be this frighteningly close to frostbite, hypothermia, and death from exposure if you lived in San Diego, where when you walk outside, you are not a potential victim of the weather itself. One is not afraid, during the summer months, of being stripped of one’s sundress and sandals because (save for the possibility of being extremely embarrassed) it’s not a life-threatening possibility. Naked threats like illness, boredom and dehydration are benign until paired with looming, billowing cold that rushes down your neck, paralyzing you even as you attempt to defend yourself from illness, dehydration, boredom.

Cold makes everything harder, slower, more laborious. Cold is confident that, given enough time, he could permeate even your most carefully planned layers of clothing. Cold wants you to recognize his tyrannical presence and bow to him as he passes. Cold and I are not on speaking terms.

At the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree, Freezing. December 6, 2007.