Word(s) of the day 30 by francoise

Word(s) of the day 30

Word of the day: Cold

When I think of cold, I think of rigidity. A vague and nightmarish memory surfaces of a sleepless night at camp when we slept out in tents on top of a mountain with woolen army blankets for warmth. I didn’t understand how the other children could be sleeping…or were they also lying on the cold ground rigid as board? The next morning, no one said a word, so I decided I must be different. That probably wasn’t true, but we are all so ready to believe in difference that the possibility must be vitally important to us in some way.

To this day I appreciate that wonderful minor miracle of warming up: You are cold. The room is cold. The sheets are cold. You climb in bed anyway and lie there rigid. Then somehow, miraculously, your own body creates warmth and the blankets trap it in there and you can feel all the muscles letting go, relaxing as your burrow becomes ever more comfortable. If you’re lucky, the balance stays perfect and doesn’t tip over into too hot.

It is said that we can’t actually remember the feeling of hot when we’re cold and that we can’t actually remember the feeling of cold when we’re hot, but we certainly can remember the emotional state that accompany extreme temperatures. I vividly remember setting out in below-zero weather to walk to school and noticing when I used the restroom that my legs had turned bright red from the cold. This made me happy and proud, to know that I had been out in the weather. None of that getting a ride from our mother that my wussy brother would accept. I was tough.

One time much more recently here in West Virginia, we had a big snow, deep enough to be unpleasant for walking. Snow over your knees requires so much effort. But one evening the dogs and I had been indoors too long and we headed out. The seemingly modest plan to trek just around the orchard turned into a nightmare as snow filled my boots and I knew it was just as far to return as to push forward. The one consolation that filled my mind was that Liam and Maia knew where I had gone and they could call out the National Guard to come fetch me if I failed to return. (The National Guard, I had read in the newspaper, had just the day before trekked out in snowshoes for miles and successfully helped a woman giving birth to a baby.) When I finally got back, I was so grateful to be in the warm house that I didn’t even mind the excruciating pain that followed the removal of my snow pack.

We’re all the same in this way, that we can only be comfortable in a fairly narrow band of temperatures.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Great textures in this shot!
October 25th, 2015  
Great warm texture and an interesting commentary.
October 25th, 2015  
Warm, cozy image
October 25th, 2015  
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