thawing

'round about 1540 yesterday i found myself thinking about candles, and hot chocolate. about the scent and flavor of vanilla, and how it mixes well with lots of things from orange to coconut to cinnamon to berries. i thought about the hooded sweatshirt i'd left at home, black with the grey stripes down the sleeves, so what if it makes me look twelve years younger than i am. i thought about how nice a warm hug would be. or maybe some coffee; starbucks has a new seasonal pumpkin spice latte but i don't do starbucks. maybe i should stop by brandt's and get some of that vanilla roast for my french press. but i'm so irritable right now, would a cup of coffee make me worse? maybe i should take some plain paper out of the printer and do some writing; it's almost time for xiaolin showdown and maybe i can take some pre-heated blankets and curl up in the corner of our room upstairs.

and i realized what the deal was.

i was cold.

frigid, frozen, i don't know how many words (or pictures) i had already used to describe it. i was cold.

and cold is bad. for me.

so let me begin, then, with an apology to the gentle reader. i am sorry for the affront. for the accusations. for the nasty thoughts i thunk your way. because i did, and they were mean! i know a disclaimer doesn't really take the sting out of hurtful words but i had tried to get away with it anyway. like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows and death, so is the man who deceives his neighbor, and says, "was i not joking?" i'm so over it now that i've defrosted. i hope you are too.

how does the cold do that to me? it really changes my whole affect. it even makes me change my posture; i kind of hunch or hunker down when i'm cold, as if to protect my viscera and sequester the heat inside them that it may not escape. i feel my energy leaving my spirit and going to my body to in an attempt to keep it warm. i feel drained; my chi is sluggish, anxiously wanting to flow faster. my muscles tighten, trying to generate some heat. with all that tension i get tense emotionally. it can be best summed up by saying that being cold just makes me feel bad.

i realized that for my body warmth = happiness when one day i put on an old ugly charcoal-grey hooded sweatshirt of mine that i had never particularly liked before. it was made of this funky, really soft nubbly material. suddenly i was warm. i stood up straight without even thinking about it. and i started getting this little feeling right in the middle of me, at my core, something unusual, something vaguely familiar. my vitality was returning. yup. happiness.

this may not bode well for the winter—but it does seem now that my upcoming move to a warmer climate will do me some good. i really hope so.