11 Degrees

"It's not very pleasant in my corner of the world...But for people who like cold, wet, ugly bits it is something rather special."

The truth is, it’s not as bad as I expected. I think I could handle a month or so of this, maybe even a couple months if I get to go home to California for a day or two in the middle. Of course, by the time the worst of it hits around February the novelty will have worn off entirely, I’m sure, but in the meantime I’m surviving quite well. In fact, a couple days ago I walked outside in 26 degree weather and found myself thinking, “You know, it’s really not that bad out here.”

Ever since I moved to Utah seven years ago my dad has told me that all I have to do to survive the cold is bundle up. It makes perfect sense, but I didn’t really believe him until now. I'm finally learning to adapt, and now by the end of my mile-long walk to school I’m usually quite toasty. For the sake of my little sister, who is beginning her very first winter away from California, I will share some of my newfound wisdom.

Scarves. Scarves didn’t make any sense to me whatsoever back when I was a first-year college student. I didn’t trust that such a flimsy piece of cloth could really make much of a difference. But some of my friends who hailed from such bitterly cold climates as Chicago and upstate New York wore them religiously, and so when a roommate tossed an relatively nice scarf in a box to take to D.I., I snatched it up, tried it out, and was delighted to find that it really worked.

This year, I have discovered that scarves work well indoors too. I tend to be the roommate who is responsible for driving the gas bill up in the winter—my family can attest that I have a low tolerance for the cold, and you can tell me all you want that I just need to bundle up more but I won’t believe you because I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. But one day a couple weeks ago, when I was shivering in the school of education building and had no extra layers other than a bulky overcoat, I had the brilliant idea of throwing my scarf around my neck. By the time I made it through my three hour literacy class I was almost too warm. I’m still in awe that a single piece of cloth around my neck can be more effective than an extra layer of clothing, but it is.

Earmuffs. I tried the hat thing for awhile when the temperature began to dip below freezing. I never wore hats in Utah, but I knew from experience that cold causes pain, and I was pretty sure my ears would fall off by the end of the twenty-minute walk to campus in below-freezing weather if I didn’t cover them. There are two problems with hats, though. First, you can’t wear them with ponytails, and I hate doing my hair too much to give up ponytails for three or four months. And second, when I’m wearing my hair down the hat causes static and my hair becomes even more unmanageable than usual. So on a whim this past weekend I bought myself a pair of earmuffs—not the fluffy kind that fit over the head, but the sporty kind that fit around the neck—and I have worn them almost every time I’ve stepped outside for nearly a week now. They are wonderful.

Shoes. I am not very good at shopping for shoes. If I try to find shoes that are practical I never wear them because I don’t like how they look, and if I try to find shoes that look good I forget about important things such as comfort and traction. Especially traction. I don’t do a lot of shoe shopping in the winter and so I don’t realize that I’ve neglected traction until the first snow falls and melts and refreezes and I realize that I will be skidding my way through the next several months. I haven’t had a good pair of winter shoes since my wonderful, durabl brown Sketchers finally became too worn to wear at least three years ago, and so when I got some early Christmas money I determined that I would set out on a quest for sturdy, warm shoes with good traction, and that I wouldn’t come home until I found some. I worried that I was setting myself up for frustration and failure. I don’t particularly care for shopping, and I especially hate shoe shopping. I wear size eleven, and many brands don’t come in size eleven. And I don’t like heels—I’m perfectly happy at 5’10” and have never wished myself shorter, but I also haven’t wished myself taller and two. This means that in your average shoe store there are approximately two pairs of shoes that meet my stringent criteria for size and heel-less-ness, and chances are pretty good that those two pairs of shoes are not at all what I'm looking for anyway.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find a pair of nice, practical, thick-soled size 11 brown Sketchers that I liked even better than my last pair at just the second store I went to. And they were on sale for well within my Christmas money budget. On Monday I laced them up and set out for school, trudging purposefully across the icy parts of the sidewalk, delighted that I no longer had to watch my feet and leap from one bare patch of sidewalk to the next as I’d been doing for the last several weeks.

I forgot, however, that new shoes take time to wear in and I was forced to spend my lunch break searching frantically for a shop near campus that carried band-aids to patch up my bleeding heel and make the walk home endurable. After scoping out the more reputable establishments, I finally located a shelf of ancient first aid supplies in a convenience store whose sole purpose appeared to be to supply needy freshmen with deodorant, Twinkies, and a wide assortment of alcoholic beverages. No worries, though—a few days of band-aids and Neosporin and thick yarn socks have remedied the situation, and my shoes are wearing in nicely, and I haven’t come close to falling down even once this week.

And now, last of all…

Long Underwear. I never thought I’d do it. Extra layers of clothing beneath my regular attire are not comfortable. But the thought of retiring my favorite pair of pants, which are made of regrettably light material, for the next four months and so on Monday I dug out the bottom half of my skiing thermals, and they made the walk to school so comfortable that I wore them again the next day underneath my jeans, and that worked out so nicely that as soon as I have money again I’m going to go out and myself another pair or two or several.

It’s incredible. All these things that people do in the wintertime to keep themselves warm actually work. Who woulda thunk it? Of course I’m already longing to go running in short sleeves, and to don my flip-flops, and to step outside without my coat on (and it’s only December). And I am certain that I will never actually enjoy the winter. But I am far more confident now than I was in the balmy days of September that I can at least survive it.