The Cold

January 28, 2024

The recent cold weather has me thinking. For those of us who live in these parts of the world the cold can be an unconsidered part of life—just one of those uncomfortable seasonal rhythms. But if someone living in a warmer climate visits, the experience of cold can be staggering. Cold enough, and the reality becomes hard to comprehend unless you’ve lived it. Jack London explores this idea in his short story To Build A Fire.¹ The protagonist does not adequately grasp the reality of 75F below zero, with dire results. London captures the extreme of the idea, but the same truth has less extreme applications. A person native to Florida has no experiential knowledge of -20F until they have lived and breathed and walked in that temperature. As London observes, there is something very different between theoretical knowledge and experiential knowledge.

The greatest experiential knowledge I can claim is -30F, a temperature we hit at least once the first year we moved into the Halfway Valley when I was a boy. That was a cold winter, but a far cry from the -75F in London’s Yukon story. The coldest temperature of which I have deeply personal experience is -22F, and I say deeply personal because I took a bike ride in that cold.

I suppose that statement could use a little explanation.

For almost twenty years of my life I took three bike rides every week. This was my favorite form of exercise. Also being a creature of habit, I was unwavering in this routine—which meant I went all year, no matter the weather, no matter the temperature. The rainstorms where I could barely see were difficult, but the snowstorms were much more dangerous (and difficult—if you think traction with a car is bad in snow try it with a mountain bike). But the most painful were the brutally cold mornings.

In the pit of winter I left on my bike ride before dawn arrived; it wasn’t until I had returned home that the sun crested the hill. I did my fair share of subzero Fahrenheit bike rides, but the coldest was -22F. This winter riding would have been more bearable if I had worn specialized clothes appropriate to the season, but in my stubbornness and poverty I just wore double sweat pants, double socks, and my winter coat along with a headband to cover my ears and gloves that were winter but not rated for the arctic cold.

And it was brutally cold.

When the ambient temperature drops into the double digits below zero the tears can freeze when they squeeze out of the corner of your eye. Eyelashes stick together. Nostril hairs harden into a plug. The beard becomes a crust of ice. There is nothing comfortable about it.

The cold air slammed against my body as I peddled ferociously to stay warm. The air was painful in a way best described as perhaps some inverse of being crushed—not literally the experience of being tossed out into the vacuum of space but a dissolution of sorts. A violent theft of heat. That kind of painful.

There was always a trajectory to the ride. Starting out it was a desperate battle to stay warm as my body wailed that it was going to freeze. About a quarter of the way into the ride I would start beating my hands against the handle bars trying to get sensation back into my numbed fingers. Halfway through the ride I would be at my warmest and for a few brief moments every part of my body was thawed and there was something almost magical in being out there. The world utterly frozen has a certain stillness to it. The air, stripped of moisture by the cold, is clear like it is clear no other time. The sun crests over a world suspended in white and nature is laid out beautiful and terrible.

In this severe coldness I felt the slightest change in temperature, the least hint of stirring air. I grimaced whenever I biked through a wooded area because in those secluded places I felt a chill worse than every other chill. Before this experience I would not have believed that a person could feel cold air settling into a pocket in the terrain so distinctly. I always wanted to get out as soon as possible, wanted to be in one of the places where the sun would first touch.

I knew I was riding close to the edge. How many more degrees cold I could survive without causing myself serious issues I didn’t know, exactly, but it wasn’t a lot more. There was only so much I could survive in sweatpants and a coat.

On the way back my body started to lose the battle with the cold. As I closed in on the half hour mark I again felt the chill encroaching on every part of my body. The frigid air was winning against my feeble heat production. The momentary warmth was failing. I couldn’t hold out much longer. Then I was home. I swung stiffly off the bike and stumbled inside, stripping off my winter garments and doing cool down stretching that was also warming up. When I undressed for the shower the front of my thighs were pink and tingly from the cold.

That is the closest I’ve come to the Yukon cold, and it is cold enough for me. There was something invigorating about the experience, once survived. The body is very aware of being alive, being warm. It starts the day off in a very sharp way.

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You can say I was a fool for riding in that weather, and I won’t argue the point. But the stubbornness displayed is echoed in some fashion, to some degree, by everyone who lives in these more northern climes. We don’t all go on bike rides in the middle of the winter in subzero temperatures, but coldness brings out a hardiness in those who face it. It either tempers perseverance and determination, or you get out.

I can’t say if forcing myself to stick to the routine of bike rides even through subzero temperature grew determination in me, or simply was an occasion to reveal the truth that I am a very stubborn person. It was, at least, an occasion that reinforced to me the truth that perseverance can carry you through a lot. I like to think those rides did some kind of good. Maybe I am just fooling myself.

There is a meanness to the brutal cold not felt in milder chills. When the outside is hovering somewhere in the 20F above zero your friends from Florida might be complaining about the cold but there is something almost cheerful and cozy about a home with a wood fire on those days. When the outside air drops below zero, the mood changes. Grab metal with a bare hands and the sensation feels like burning. Hostility invades the world, and I can feel the battle. Yes, inside the house it is warm, but it feels like some frozen demon is trying to claw through the windows. The windows and doors radiate cold when I walk past. Frigid air oozes through tiny cracks in the walls. The temperature around my feet is noticeably colder than around my head. The cold outside wants to win—it is trying to win—and crush the house into a frozen death. And in that cold I remember how savage the wild really is. The weather can be merciless. I understand why people freeze to death.

To go outside on such a night feels a bit like stepping into a hostile void. The snow crunches loud beneath boots, a sharpness distinctly different from the softer sounds of snow in warmer weather. For a moment a cloud of warmer air hangs around me—then it is gone, and the chill presses in. Chores are done in a hurry and if I’m not quick enough I’m chilled to the bone.

Back inside, the battle for comfort is constant. The cold claws at the windows, batters the walls, seeps through the floor. And I stoke the fire until it roars. I do find a metaphor for life in this contest, a thing worth pondering. If the cold and dark of these winter nights speak for the coldest and darkest times of life, then as much as a warm fire is needed on these nights that fact tells the truth of how the warmth of friendship, companionship, and good company is vital to making it through those cold and dark seasons of the soul. Without warmth and light, you die. As easily as we acknowledge that physical truth, we don’t always heed it in the inner realm. In London’s grim story, the protagonist died because he did not respect the cold. I think that is equally true for the inner cold and dark that assails us.

On winter nights it can feel like the cold will never end. It can feel like that inside us, too. But then, eventually, the weather breaks. The temperature softens. You’ve survived. So it goes through winter, through life, until finally all the battles are over. Whether you are stuck inside your house with the snow blowing outside, or trapped within the cage of your mind feeling the cold—persevere. The season will turn.

1. Interesting fact: Jack London wrote two versions of the short story To Build a Fire. The first, written in 1902, was less grim. The second version was written in 1908 is the one widely anthologized and to which I am referencing here. If you are familiar with any version it is likely this later story. The 1908 version is far darker. If you are curious to compare the two, you can start here: http://london.sonoma.edu/writings/Uncollected/tobuildafire.html