It’s too early for spring fever, as it’s still more than a month before we’ll see the first crocuses (and more than two months before we’ll see the first wildflowers) here in southwest New Hampshire. But even the Main Street mannequins in downtown Keene sense an unspoken yearning for skin-baring dresses and sexy heels.
After months of stomping around in hiking boots, I’m yearning for sandal season and the decadent luxury of bare toes and naked ankles. Hiking boots are a necessary item of clothing here in New Hampshire, especially given how slippery the sidewalks are where they’re still covered with hard-packed snow and ice, and I can’t count the number of times my Yaktrax have saved me from slipping and falling. But I’m getting tired of booting up every time I suit up. Far from fantasizing about tripping the light fantastic, I find myself merely wanting to walk without boots and without slips, stumbles, and sprains. During these frozen, slippery days, simply showing a little ankle seems unspeakably risky, at least for those of us who walk to work, walk the dog, and keep on walk, walk, walking even when the way is wet or icy underfoot.
I’ve made peace with single-digit temperatures: I have a toasty coat and don’t mind bundling in both hat and scarf. Your fingers will warm up eventually, I’ve found, if you walk briskly, blood pumping its inevitable way into even your coldest extremities. Recent days have been bright, and the snow has only intensified the glare, so I haven’t felt starved for sunshine this winter. But my feet simply want to be released from the captivity of boots, and my ankles ache for the light of day. How long until I dare to go bare?
Feb 5, 2009 at 9:05 am
Interesting set of factoids about you.
I drink a large glass of V8 every day, laced with a tablespoon of oat bran. It allows me to harbor the illusion that I’m leading a healthy life.
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Feb 5, 2009 at 3:31 pm
lorianne, I’m especially fascinted by #19. The arias. I learned Italian from a teacher who began by teaching us all to sing arias (well-known and not so well-known), and for that I am grateful to this day.
T.
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Feb 7, 2009 at 8:21 am
Hi Lorianne! Please tell me the secret to making peace with single digit temperatures? I’ve been all bundly … even indoors … and I just can’t get warm. The weather here in Cincinnati is so unpredictable and we have gloom 90% of the time. Sandals sound absolutely delicious right now. Um, not literally. But you know what I mean.
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Feb 7, 2009 at 11:50 am
My only “secret” is to walk outside EVERY DAY, even (especially?) when I don’t feel like it. Having a dog who “forces” me to walk helps…but I find it’s essential that I keep moving. Maybe if I worked out at a gym, walking wouldn’t be so important…but I think walking outside in the cold every day forces me to face it rather than avoid it, and I find that if I walk briskly enough, I really do warm up.
(The five minute walk to campus is NOT enough to thaw my fingers out, for instance…but a 30- to 45-minute dogwalk is.)
I can’t help with the “gloom” part, but the combination of bundling & physical activity is what “works” for me. Your results may vary. š
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Feb 7, 2009 at 11:58 am
When I was a kid in Andover, Mass, down the road from Keene, in late winter I would roam the woods looking for signs of spring. As I remember, the very first I found was skunk cabbages pushing up in swampy areas. They should be up pretty soon.
My aunt used to cut bits of forsythia and flowering quince and put them in water indoors. They bloom and give hope of warmer times.
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