A Winter Tale

If I were asked what kind of weather I preferred, I would have to reply the cold, drizzly winter’s day.

The Rio Grande Valley does not have many such days.  Usually, the sun burns hot in the sky year round, basking everything in such bright light that anything exposed to its rays seems to pale and bleach.  The unforgiving sun removes the dye from billboard signs and cars.  It evaporates the wet greenness from grass and vegetation, leaving behind a dry yellow and brown.  It burns the skin to dark brown.  It leaves deposits of salt and other minerals after pulling out the body’s juices.

Simply, the cold, grey day is mythological event, a setting only existing in far away places such as Seattle or London, which may as well be Neverland. 

When the occasional grey, misty day does present itself, I relish it.  I celebrate it, decorating myself and my house in the necessary and customary adornments. 

My wife retrieves the thick white feather comforter, and we cover our bed with it, giving it the appearance of a deep layer of snow.  But when we dig ourselves underneath the drifts, we warm ourselves, our body heat trapped with us between the bed sheets and the comforter.  And when we have warmed ourselves in our makeshift sweat lodge, we let half our body be exposed to the frigid air which has snuck in from outside so that we can bring our temperature down and stop sweating so profusely.

When it is time to leave the house, I open the front closet, which has not been opened for such a long time, to find my pea coat.  Every time I open it, an odor of winter rushes out at me, the smell of wool and heavy cotton.  Of thick warmth contained in a pair of cotton gloves, or in a woven stocking hat, or a cotton scarf.  I wrap the scarf around my neck and don the black pea coat, buttoning it tight to prevent the chill from seeping in, and put each glove on my fingers, another layer of skin.

Walking outside, though, your face is still is exposed, and the cold air rubs the pinkness back into your cheeks and causes your nose to turn raw without much provocation, causes it to produce its own set of bodily fluid which you try to hold in by sniffling, but can’t, because it flows too fast.  You have no tissue, nothing to capture the excretion, only the back of your hand which you swipe across your nostrils, hoping that the mucus will stay, but it doesn’t. 

It’s nice to entire into a building, coming from outside, the distinct wall of warmth pouring over you like cleansing water.  Inside, you feel your cheeks and your hands, how chilled they are, like marble, and you watch as they come back to life, your old pallor coming back to your face, the sense of feeling creeping into your fingertips and toes. 

You partake in a hot cup of coffee, the surface dissipating into a steam and rising into the air.  The first sip always burns your lips and the top of your mouth.  It scalds the throat going down into the stomach.  And then the second sip is cooler, more manageable than the first.

And the same ritual you took to don the coat, the stalking cap, the gloves, you do in reverse, removing the layers, to expose yourself to the inside air.  There is a formality to it, a sacredness to it. 

Winter is a time of sweaters and long johns, of woolen socks, and heavy pajamas.  It is a time of fire places, and the scent of wood burning, even when there is not a fire present, a ghost scent that fall hinted at, but winter brought in full force. 

Winter brings closeness, relying on the heat emanating from your loved ones.  It is cuddling and spooning.  It is hibernation, and long dark peace.