The Freeze

There is no adjective for the weather. Descriptions of the cold only do so much, and you know that a number does not, and cannot, prepare anyone for stepping outside and getting punched in the gut. Your jeans become rigid, like cardboard. They scrape against your shins. Your scarf is useless and after only a few moments outside you realize that you, with your red nose and chapped lips, are beginning to look like a penguin.

Walking is for sissies. Walkers trip on the banks and slip and fall in parking lots. You jog past and laugh at their ginger steps. Trotting victoriously past a group of walkers, you smile because you know that you will get to the bus stop at exactly the right time, greet the bus driver and take a seat. The walkers will wait in the cold. Your jeans will thaw; theirs will turn to plywood.

Remember in November, when the air had just started to smell like snow? Now it smells of wind and numbness and you're longing for November again. Not July, you are not that foolish. November. All you can think about is the fleece jacket bliss that is November.