The Cold

I'm not usually bothered overmuch by weather. I've lived in cold places. I've lived in hot places. You look out the window, you decide what you're going to wear. You make sure your hair is dry before you leave the house or you risk showing up somewhere with frozen hair. You wear layers so you can add and subtract during the day, depending on air conditioning levels at the office and whether the secretary nearest the thermostat is having hot flashes.

It has been pretty cold here over the past few weeks. If you live here, I don't have to say it. If you don't, it is cold. Highs in the teens. Lows? Lower than that. Not that it matters all that much, as long as you have gloves and a scarf, since no one spends more than a minute outside, between their car and their door, unless they have to scrape ice off their windshield.

This morning I walked outside and was struck dumb for a second at the depth of the cold. When I took a breath, it slipped inside my lungs like liquid coolant. I literally couldn't move for a second, it was so cold.

When I got in my car, the temperature measured 12 degrees. By the time I got to work, it was 4 degrees.

In the grand scheme of things, it isn't the coldest I've been. That record is held by a day I spent driving home from DC to Michigan in December while on the Pennsylvania Turnpike when I ran out of wiper fluid and had to buy more at a rest stop. I stood in the cold, no gloves, pouring wiper fluid into my car, spilling it on my hands, while snow fell on me in hard, wet clumps.

Nor was it as bad as those really crisp, white, sparkling mornings in Vermont when you could step outside onto the porch and breath in through your nose, only to have the hairs in your nostrils harden up and freeze.

But I was warm in my bed this morning. Warm and happy and not thinking about much of anything until I went outside and the cold air hit me and I came to the realization that, yes, it is Monday and there is no escape from it.