What I love most about the cold is almost nothing. At best it’s an excuse for turtlenecks and soup, a day spent indoors with a book. A night curled snug against my favourite body.
My own body is too cold, in the cold. Too sissy. My blood retreats from my extremities to muster at the heart, leaving toes and fingers for dead. Even on a day of middling damp, my pinky becomes a macabre party trick, coming out of a mitten entirely leached, an earwax yellow.
Today is as cold as any day my body has known. Maybe all of our bodies. The dog, sent outdoors to do his business, cannot abide the flash-freeze of his paws, lifting each in turn to hover. His inept puppeteer cannot coax him into a squat.
We swath ourselves in layers: socks upon socks, coats over jackets, ski-pants over long-johns over leggings, hoods on toques, on toques. Human baklava in balaclavas. Outside feels reckless, like we’ve stolen something or taken a pill offered by a stranger. Surviving is a coin toss.
Ten minutes along a winding mountain trail, my toes are pebbles in my boots, my nose is no longer a nose. My eyelashes grow heavy, bejeweled, and my glasses need de-icing. Underfoot, the squeak of snow is so loud I can catch the laughter of my friends, but not the punch line.
What I love most about the cold is its self-importance. How when it IS, it is the only-only thing, demanding every ounce of our attention. And admiration.
Because look at the way the sun is dusting the flour from her hands so that the air glints and dances. See how the trees huddled in their white choir robes might soon raise their arms, palms up, for the chorus. How smell becomes a taste.
An inhale is diamond dust, nicking my throat and lungs to remind them to take nothing for granted. Not my roof, my bed, the hot meal waiting at home. Not my thumping heart, my funny friends. Not this step or the next. Not wonder, not being, not breath.