Insulation

I shivered in Galesburg for a week, and I shivered so much that on the my last day, Wednesday, I stepped out of a leaky shower and got to dripping and shaking so hard that I convinced myself that I was frozen in place. I suppose I feel that way about a lot of things, like making phone calls and sending emails, and a January vacation to Western Illinois had little in the way of coaxing to do in order for those tendencies to surface. After seven days of poor insulation, I was certain I had to stay.

I did. I made some kind of scene to my mother over the phone, and I stayed in bed and cried, and I shook and I shivered and it was all too dramatic for my liking, really. Then again, it was just about dramatic enough. The Farmer's Almanac had only two words to describe the dates of my visit: "bitter cold". I stayed a day more and tried to thaw a little.

In the Mid-Atlantic, there are heaps of snow outside. The air is dry and quiet, which winter ought to be. Indoors, though, the heat is trapped behind thick glass and humidifiers whir upstairs and down, and there are overflowing bowls of citrus and kiwi on the kitchen counter. I took a long bath, and then wrapped myself up in a thin cotton robe and walked around the house collecting my plants, returning them from their vacation sills to the Little Room's window. My miniature rose is in full bloom now, and with any luck it'll last here until spring.