Cold
This is Western Coffee—notes on building the creative body. Last time: Intention. The whole series is here. Please share this email; you can sign up free below.
As I begin writing this post about cold, it’s pretty warm in New York. This morning I put on shorts and a t-shirt and went running through Williamsburg, reaching the Apple Store for my phone repair with a May quantity of sweat at least. Sorry, Apple Store guy.
Balmy interludes aside, I love the New York winter. It differs from the one I grew up with, not much in temperature but plenty in overall vibe, because Salt Lake City experiences an atmospheric inversion effect—with cold air trapped on the valley floor for weeks as warmer currents pass over, industrial and automotive pollution accumulating to a visible, smellable, soul-crushing thickness. Wood-burning fireplaces and stoves go dormant by law, and people drive up to the ski resorts just to glimpse some sunlight.
In the less freighted chill of New York, January is a time for me of good sleep and mental acuity and errands run inconspicuously on the way home from the gym. Natural temperatures on Earth range from a recorded Antarctic low of negative 128 degrees Farenheit to, in the planetary core, over 10,000 degrees. We occupy the narrowest slice of it, ferried by a few percentage points’ difference from comfort to distraction to danger. A short-sleeve run in Brooklyn is perhaps 20 degrees removed from a lonely death in Buffalo.
On Christmas Day I ran eight miles in Central Park—my longest run ever, part of a slowly building progression toward, in theory, a marathon. The “feels like” temperature that day, factoring in wind, was 16 degrees, and I set out not knowing whether or for how long I’d be able to keep it up. In the hilly shadows north of 105th Street I found myself pulling out the “just in case” balaclava from my backpack and covering most of my head; a few minutes later I’d sweated through it running uphill and had to remove it. The cold never became critical, though: I felt fine until I got home, when my warming elbows and knees turned red and broke out in hives. I took a Benadryl and made an appointment with my doctor. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
Cold is a plaything and a weapon, a flirtation and a vise. It can constructively reveal, and nudge, the limits of our psychic fortitude; but we can’t really use it to test the limits of our physical durability—not without the risk of never returning—and this tension leaves a slender but intriguing route of passage for the creative body, toward strength, toward abiding, toward growth. A precious margin.
Coming Tuesday: Impossible.
Kindly send me your thoughts, questions, and provocations: dmichaelowen@gmail.com. And say hi on Instagram, or let’s Peloton together: @leggy_blond.