Cold Weather

Ahhh, finally cold weather has arrived in South Texas. Which is to say, that between midnight and eight a.m. it is somewhere in the low to mid fifties. It is not enough but we'll take what we can get. Since many of our fellow Texans have actually fled here from points North to escape the cold, our joy at it's brief visit puts us squarely in the minority. As a young man I was never too crazy about cold weather either but somewhere around age 19, I turned a corner, embraced the cold and have never looked back. And now like any kind person who has seen the light, I feel compelled to spread the word.

If you were asked to think of a type of weather that brings you to an ecstatic awareness of the world around you, you would most likely think of a spring day with the sun warming your skin as you walked through green fields with flowers blooming all around, or perhaps a dip in the cool blue sea to beat the summer heat. That's all good and great and I love those things too but I would like to propose that winter is every bit as sensual as the more popular spring and summer. This common knowledge to millions of happy Norwegians, Minnessotans, and Inuits, will comes as a surprise to many of my Southern friends as they have never experienced cold in it's rightful habitat. Cold weather when it descends this far South always comes as an intruder, an unwelcome visitor who disturbs the natural order of things and so I can't really blame them for the fear they display towards the cooler temps.

In Defense of a Frigid Day

Cold weather enhances almost to the point of exaggeration, the value of common things in our daily lives. Take coffee for example. During the summer coffee is a habit, something we drink because we have no choice. In the winter it is takes on this life sustaining quality. That first hot sip spreading warmth through your chest, the warmth of the mug in your hands, the steam rising off the surface and spreading across your face as you draw the cup closer to your face. Bliss. Sustenance. Strength. This luxurious moment brought to you courtesy of winter.

No matter what your feelings for it the rest of the year, your house on a cold winter's night takes on an almost Thomas Kincade like quality. More than a shelter from the elements, it becomes a sanctaury bathed in golden light, warm, full of loved ones and good food. And the bedding, oh thank you Jesus for our beds on a cold winter's night. How is it that someone in their mid thirties, having laid down to sleep in excess of 12,000 times in his or her life life can lay between flannel sheets, under a down comforter as if for the very first time?

Even breathing it's self is transformed. What is a subconcious reflex in warmer times becomes an act of subtle delight as each breath fills your lungs with cold air. Vigor! Breathing in winter is as refreshing as a glass of ice water is on a hot summer's day.

The key to enjoying winter is in dressing appropriately. It brings such a feeling of contentment to move about in sub freezing weather feeling the cold only on your face as your boots, gloves, hat and jacket surround you in a protective cocoon of warmth. And you look great too. Take the grumpiest person on a bad day, dress them in a parka with a wool hat and they appear downright huggable.

In the summer it is nearly impossible to cool off and any relief you find is predicated upon your moving and exerting as little energy as possible. In the winter the exact opposite is true, the more you move and exert the warmer you become. Say, you were chopping wood or playing offensive line for the Green Bay Packers on a 12 degree afternoon, it would be possible to generate enough heat that you could shed your coat and labor in a short sleeve shirt and the heat would still rise off your back and head in plumes of steam.

In his book"We Are Still Married", Garrison Keillor describes jump starting his neighbor's car on a morning when the thermometer was well below zero. I will leave with the following excerpt: "We finally get her started and then go into her kitchen for a cup of coffee-we say, 'Hooooo, it's a cold one out there. You hear the weather this morning? Cold out there. Terrible.' Except it's not terrible at all. You're a man who is phenomenally alive, your whole body, the nervous system and along the cortex and in the marrow of the bones, every part of the body has got the message: 'Heat. Let's go. Come on team. Little more H now. Let's have some more H.' There is no depression at twenty below... You venture out and every internal organ is up on it's feet doing the schottische, your skin is singing the Habanera."