Four words many people dread hearing me say. I hate being cold. Hate it. I think it was probably a trait I inherited from my mother. We’re having our HVAC system worked on today and I haven’t been able to turn on the heat. Granted, it’s only 64 in here, but with the wind chill that feels like … I digress.
I’m not certain where my distaste for the cold came from. My mom was never comfortable. She was either too hot or too cold. My dad never complained. About anything. In fact, I’m betting he was in a whole lot of physical pain most of the time, and we just didn’t know. People around town would ask him how he was doing, and he’d always say the same thing, “Poorly, poorly.” He was generally a happy person, so the juxtaposition of his demeanor and his Eeyore-like response always got a smile.
But, after reading his letters about his Jeep accident, I think he was telling the truth.
At any rate, it was the cold in Montana that influenced my move to Oregon. I thought I was moving to a place more temperate, only to show up in Portland during a drought, followed by one of the coldest winters on record.
I think it’s following me. The cold. I think I’m cursed. The cold makes my mind slow down … to like … stupidity. I can’t think straight. I get distracted. I turn irritable. Let’s face it: I suck in the cold.
Today I made excellent headway, though. I knocked out another chapter. Don’t know if it’s any good. I’ll think about that tomorrow. That’s been my M.O.—I write a little every day (today I wrote a lot, because I wrote only a little yesterday … damn that football) and then I edit something different than what I wrote. So tomorrow, I’ll go back to what I wrote today and edit it. That way it has time to age a bit before I hack away.
It’s a humbling experience, memoir. You get a keen understanding of yourself. The guilt comes in waves of introspection. Too late to do anything about that now, I think, and I plow ahead.
I’m making progress, though. I’m moving on.