The cold makes me hungry.
Then I feel guilty about a season so many deal with year in and year out, having such an effect on me.
But, I mean, like, it makes me REALLY HUNGRY!
I grew up in California and never really experienced the cold, and while there was a decade or so that found me in Park City, Utah every year surrounded by the White Death for a film festival, I actively avoided it at all costs. I went from hotel to car to movie theater to car to restaurant to car to hotel etc. Over and over for a few days until I escaped back to the safety of the sunshine, always feeling like I was a survivor.
When my then best friend, now wife and I were sixteen, we decided late one night to drive to LA’s local ski resort, a place called Big Bear. Half way up the mountain chains were required and though she’d been skiing with her family since forever and was an old pro, I the utter novice was designated to put the chains on her little Dodge Neon. I can vividly recall shivering while simultaneously pouring sweat. Pulled over on the side of a mountain while other cars flew by us, down in the mud, with numb fingers, for over an hour. I’d wanted to put on a good show for her, but very soon found I couldn’t control my four letter outbursts when trying to marry the male and female ends of the chains.
Some years later, with four children in tow, my wife finally got me to participate in an actual ski lesson, the very first was also the very last. I have no desire to continuously experience the sensation of slipping while also being cold (and hungry).
This perplexes her as we have been waging a silent war over the thermostat for over two decades now. When the kids were little, I gave in to an above 70 degree household. Now that they’re all adults (in legal terms), 68 is my best and final offer, especially since it still falls within the definition of “Room Temperature”.
Having just finished back to back jobs in Montana and Toronto, I feel ever confident in identifying as a person who DOES NOT like the cold. It only exists to evoke an animalistic feeling within me of the need to escape. I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone arrived in these locals, way back when, experienced sub zero degrees and didn’t flee for their lives. When they saw all the birds flying south, why not follow? Without the comforts of modern day, I couldn’t do it. I found myself watching much more television, hiding out indoors, not motivated to move. Whatever energy I could muster to make myself move a bit more was zapped, and there was even some sense that I needed to conserve energy in case of a catastrophic grid failure and we all had to march out of the frosty madness.
CONSERVE energy!
The very opposite of what I’ve been trying to do for years: expend as much energy as possible!
I will say that I was flabbergasted to find I hadn’t gained any weight when I got home. Surrounded by frost, and television and the bizarre desire to be warm, still had me a bit worried.
But the White Death is melting, the flowers are beginning to bloom, and as the sunshine appears, it is time once again for me to get back to work on myself!