Are You Ready?

 It’s gonna get cold, and I’m dreading its approach, if not a little nervous. Every year it gets cold and to me it’s like the first time I’ve ever been cold; as Foreigner says “it feels like the first time.” I have sweaters, jackets, coats, and long pants, and yet…it’s like I’m naked. “How did you ever survive in Virginia?” is the obvious question. And yet I was born in a blizzard, in Maryland in 1993 (I bet you didn’t know that about me). Even an icy Capricorn is not immune to winter’s breath.

John and I smoke in the trailer; I’m so glad I don’t have to step outside to puff in the what-would-be snow. I can only imagine: a cigarette trembling between my frozen fingertips, my own breath indistinguishable from wafts of smoke. And people live like that. Thank god the rush from nicotine distracts you from your own shivering misery (misery is a little harsh. I don’t think the weather is any form of punishment). Though I do agree smoking is more deadly than any jaunt in the cold (except hypothermia). But who can stand it?

Florida in winter is not the Florida I know. My first experience in Florida was in the summer, so forever after I associated it with the heat. Until I moved here (I never really moved here. I came to visit and I never left). One year I even saw snowflakes, if you can believe that. 

Thankfully we’re not plunged right into winter. It’s like being on a slow moving seasonal rollercoaster. And right now that ride is dipping ever so down down down. You may not even feel it.

It’s October and I’m still sleeping with the air conditioning running (I’d never do that in Virginia). And it’ll be a while before I plug in the electric blanket. My socks are patiently waiting to be of use. My thick plush bathrobe is not exactly doing me justice. To quote John, “Soon come.”

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