When I went out of my home, I knew my body had no sense of the actual
temperature outside. I knew it more as my strides lengthened the
distance between me and my clanging heat system and yet I still felt
it's warmth my clothes, in the blood making centers of my bones. How
easy it is to live here in the North East when you have heat! How
pleasant the experience of the cold becomes when you know it won't
actually be cracking your skin for months without ceasing!
It has been just about three years since the city had me in rough ways.
I remembered how this same temperature -39F was cold to stay long in
without heat, but not deadly so. It did mean that my hands would be
stiff and numb-useless hold a fork, to write or paint... I can still
remember trying to survive 11F under layers of clothes and blankets;
shivering to unconsciousness because there was nothing else you could
do. My thought was: endure it. Survive.
I held on long enough to come out of that feral existence and though
time has passed and softened me a bit, I don't want to ever completely
forget those experiences. They are precious because they connect me to
others who have walked with even meaner things in life....
So, if you have heat, be happy as the winter sets in. It is saving your life.
If you don't have heat, throw on the layers and think of how you are
becoming a better human being. Go on and whine, but do try to learn
something while you make all that complaining noise.
temperature outside. I knew it more as my strides lengthened the
distance between me and my clanging heat system and yet I still felt
it's warmth my clothes, in the blood making centers of my bones. How
easy it is to live here in the North East when you have heat! How
pleasant the experience of the cold becomes when you know it won't
actually be cracking your skin for months without ceasing!
It has been just about three years since the city had me in rough ways.
I remembered how this same temperature -39F was cold to stay long in
without heat, but not deadly so. It did mean that my hands would be
stiff and numb-useless hold a fork, to write or paint... I can still
remember trying to survive 11F under layers of clothes and blankets;
shivering to unconsciousness because there was nothing else you could
do. My thought was: endure it. Survive.
I held on long enough to come out of that feral existence and though
time has passed and softened me a bit, I don't want to ever completely
forget those experiences. They are precious because they connect me to
others who have walked with even meaner things in life....
So, if you have heat, be happy as the winter sets in. It is saving your life.
If you don't have heat, throw on the layers and think of how you are
becoming a better human being. Go on and whine, but do try to learn
something while you make all that complaining noise.
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