The icy breath of winter, the tepid lust for spring.
Last night I did something I have not done for months. I drove with my window down.
Oooooh.
I\’m sure you are paralyzed with astonishment. But it\’s true, I can\’t hide it. I won\’t deny it.
It\’s something I long ago swore I would not do.
\”Never Again!\” I said.
After the stank heat of August and the straight-from-the-dryer warmth of September, the cold air was unwelcome in my vehicle.
Fifty degrees? I scoffed. I would roll down my window for a fifty-year-old prostitute first.
And so the glass stayed up. Starting sometime in October, the window became like the pursed lips of a bitter woman.
I too, became bitter (and perhaps a bit womanly). I resented the cold air. In brittle breaths, I cursed the gray and white. The window became murky with road-splatter, until it ceased being a window at all.
But last night the air was different, like a wet patch of grass. Still a little cold, but alive. That\’s what had been missing.
So I rolled the crank. And the car-air and outside-air met and talked, and made little jokes. They didn\’t fight.
38 degrees! I could have worn a bikini.
It\’s a sad thing, really, and it happens every year. Winter reduces me to a sniveling, desperate shrub. So that when a trashy blonde like 38 degrees comes along, I think she\’s Greta Garbo.
And when May comes around I will fall in love with every day, just because the air isn\’t trying to shatter my teeth. It\’s a scary way to live, because you know your standards are so feeble. It\’s not nice to realize that the same thing that made you cold six months ago, makes you melt with happiness today.
But that\’s the cycle we have to learn to live with here. And I have learned to live with it.
So I hope 38 degrees keeps coming back. She may be a trashy blonde, but to me she\’s the prettiest girl in the world.
That is, unless we hit 40 today.