Cold

The other day I watched my cat move sleepily from her napping chair towards her napping bed. As she walked past me and my desk she stepped into a long patch of sun shooting warm patterns on the floor. Her hind legs froze, her front legs kept going, but eventually she moved her little body into a contented cat stretch then plopped down to soak up the sunshine and nap right there on the floor.

I envy her. Lately my body has been bent and bowed not just with exhaustion but cold. I’m freezing. All the time. I wake up shivering under piles of blankets in a cold bedroom. I shake through my shower, growling at the two minutes of hot water tease before the pipes fun cold.

I shiver in my clothes. I chatter in my coat. My large house, with it’s white cavernous rooms sucks the heat away. My office pumps cold air onto my cube and I struggle to type emails with gloved hands. Math class finds me trying to curl into a ball under my desk.

I’m cold. And I can’t warm up. It exhausts me. It drains me. I long for that small patch of sun to curl up in. Just a little bit, just to be warm for a few minutes. That’s all I want.

This morning as I was moving myself from my sleeping bed to my cold car, I found my own patch of sunshine. A large, warm , inviting ray of light shining through our front door window. Standing at the foot the stairs I was transfixed. I leaned forwards, watching the streaks of bright yellow light shoot out over the snow covered lawn, through bare trees, over the whole world outside. It called to me. It begged me to stop, to look, to listen. I wanted to touch the light, to lie inside it and soak it up the same as my cat. I wanted to be naked in the light, to feel it's warm arms wrap around me and straight into me. No more bundles, no more artificial fleeting patches of warm, just pure heat. Inside and out.

In my quest to get closer I moved towards the door. Closer and closer I got, my skin tingling to feel that hot touch, those rays of sun scorching my skin, breathing heat and life and energy back into my lungs. Close I got to warm, to light, to wakefulness. Until I hit the door. Cold, hard, uninviting glass. The suns rays refracted in it, splashing colors across my face, but no heat. I turned my head and pressed my cheek against the smooth surface. Light broke through it, painfully bright, it burned into my eyes. But I was cold. The glass was cold, my cheek was cold, my body was shaking with cold. The door held me up, but inside I was frozen, still, and lifeless.

And outside, in that patch of sunshine the snow was frozen and the air was windy.

It was bright, but it was cold. And I just can’t get warm.