COLD

For the first time in my life, I truly feel the cold.  I feel a cold more visceral than “bone-chilling,” but I feel that too.  I feel it on my skin and in my skin and under my skin.  I feel it in my gut and hanging from my earlobes and deep in my veins.  I know it’s related to the impending shut down of my ovaries, but I’ll be damned if I understand it. 

I spent the last 52 years being very warm.  My earliest memories are of attempts at extracting myself from the many layers of fabric my mother had me wrapped in.  She was born and raised in the Tropic of Cancer so northern California has always been way too cold for her.  And because she was cold, she was convinced I was cold.  She failed to realize or recognize that half my DNA was from cold-hardy Briton and Slavic stock.  Just one look at me and it’s obvious I’m not all Asian.  My brother was the Asian child; lithe and gangly and invisible from the side whereas I resembled my much more sturdily built Caucasian great-grandmother. Not fat, but not made solely of air and bamboo like my mom and my brother.  Even then my waifish brother was also never cold.  Partially because of his DNA but partially because of the ADHD diagnosis my parents chose to ignore that kept him in perpetual motion.

We got clothes twice a year.  Once in August for back to school and again in May for summer things.  Most of our clothing came from Kmart, but not the back-to-school clothing.  That came from the Sears Robuck catalog which arrived religiously every August.  Then late every August a box would arrive full of nylon and rabbit hair sweaters and polyester pants that I usually had zero input in choosing.  It was the kind of clothing you would want if you lived in Chicago, Illinois in the winter…which is exactly where the Sears Robuck company was located. 

But we lived in California on the southernmost tip of the San Francisco bay where we were spared the legendary Golden Gate fog and were almost always bathed in sunlight.  The farms of the valley that world now knows as Silicon Valley were plentiful and productive year-round.  Summer in California extends well past August.  We don’t know the season everyone else calls “fall.”  We’ve seen photos of crimson and gold leaves and longed for hayrides and hot cider and smores around midday bonfires made of fallen leaves.  We know that people on the east coast dawn gloves and scarves in September but don’t really understand why.  It’s still 100 degrees in California in September.  We go back to school still covered in sweat.  More so when every piece of your back-to-school wardrobe is made for and in states that actually cool down in September.  It did not snow in Milpitas, California.  It still doesn’t snow there. If it got below 55 degrees all us weather wimps rushed inside and cranked up the central heating.   There was a freak snowstorm in February 1976 that left an inch of snow on city streets and much more in the hills, but one freak snowstorm did not justify the death of all those rabbits.  Or the itching. 

To further complicate things my brother and I went to a small Pentecostal school with a strict dress code.  It would have been easier-and more comfortable- if they would have assigned a uniform like the Catholic school.  Every Pentecostal knows that the Catholics with their beads and saints and statues were idol worshipers and, therefore, heathens who in no way should be emulated.  As great and egalitarian (and weather friendly) as uniforms would have been there was no way my school was adopting the devil’s dress code.   Also, unlike the kids in catholic or public school, the dress code stated there would be no shorts, no t-shirts, no printed shirts, no jeans, and skirts had to hit the floor when kneeling and were measured by the teachers every year. Basically, nothing cool and absolutely NO 1970’s summer clothes. 

My mom decided that the sweaters weren’t at all itchy and I was just being difficult because I didn’t like the clothes she bought me.  She was right about my not liking them.  She chose stuff from the only page in the catalog that just showed the item unmodeled and was frequently cheaper bought in volume.  It didn’t help that the clothes were never the right size and made for a girl living in Siberia with no fashion sense.  Or maybe that girl did have some style savvy but also knew she’d never be taking her coat off and would be up to her neck in snow so why bother with the more expensive stylish stuff.  Get the cheap warm stuff because no one will ever see it.  Get the things made of polyester and nylon and rabbits that didn’t breathe (figuratively and literally.)

Contrary to my mom’s belief, the itching was very real.  I’d scratch my skin raw. It was worse when the sweater in question was a turtleneck.   I was built like my nana from the neck down which meant not having a neck, so I had a nose and mouth full of angora hair and the hives and deep red grooves now ran up the side of my face.   Mom’s solution to my itching was to make me wear a shirt under the sweater.  Because that’s exactly what you need under a sweater rated for arctic exploration being worn in the fourth month of summer.  The only upside to being forced to wear it to school was that one particularly bad rash sent my teacher and the rest of the staff into a panic over measles.

The Doctor diagnosed it as heat rash. “But she could be allergic to this damn rabbit hair too.  I’m so sick of this stuff.  Gets everywhere and half the girls that come here are breaking out in hives because of it.  Calamine lotion.  Try not to scratch.  Why the hell are you wearing a sweater in September anyway?”

I was 10 years old before I had any say in my school wardrobe.  There was no point arguing against the polyester pants, but she did stop buying the sweaters every year.  That does not mean she finally believed me when I said I wasn’t cold.   Heat rash was still an issue.  She simply replaced the sweaters with Coats of Extraordinary Thickness.  I’d end up with these massive, voluminous nylon coats that rustled loudly when you moved and kept your arms away from your sides. I was wrapped in so much woven petroleum that chemical burns via spontaneous combustion was a real threat.  But one I’d gladly take over angora hair sweaters.  

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