those days were much colder

biting, bitter, made for the thickest socks possible, layers and layers, the struggle of stuffing two sweaters under one jacket, needing a pair of gloves covered by mittens. winter starts before the cold gets to us here, down south. the north begins its exhalation of the past year much sooner, shaking off its leaves and tracing windows of ice out of the edges of river beds. the coldest, flatest rocks somehow become colder, more flat, with the change in temperature. all of a sudden the wind is no longer welcome, turned into an enemy that the chest and lungs fight harder against as its numbness is taken in by the nose, the reluctant mouth.

the winter is less welcome here. we are wimps with weak blood and a weaker countanence. change, even the seasons, seems so much more a challenge, something only to whine about, if you live further south.

i am tired of the retreating indoors. if it must be so, more incubation and less hibernation, please. turn off the heat. welcome the fire of numbness, pins and pains in the bare feet on the bare floor. lift open the window, lift open the sense of touch and feel the movement across the threshold, from liquid summer to solid winter. take its shape.