Mia Rose Kohn

I hate the cold. 

People always think that just because I’m from Massachusetts, I “enjoy” cold weather. I refute this claim! It’s not my fault my parents raised me in a wintery hellscape, where streets are slick with black ice, cars are caked in snow and my hands dry and crack no matter how much lotion I put on them.

At Yale, too, the cold brings few advantages. I rush as fast as possible from class to class, lest I get frozen to death or blown away by the gusts of wind that race along in front of HQ. Layering is key, sure — a thermal shirt, a regular shirt, a sweater, wool socks, regular socks, one of those chunky, funky-colored scarves, maybe a hat depending on the quality of my hair — but even that has its limits. 

“Why don’t you just embrace winter?” you ask. “It’s pretty, in a desolate, dystopian, depressing way,” you say. Your words, not mine. “Cold is a social construct — just choose to not feel it.”

I applaud your outstanding state of denial. Shivering pitifully as I venture to Commons to lunch or dare to walk up the wind tunnel of Prospect Street toward Science Hill, I have come to the conclusion that the cold is not a construct, but rather a painful and immutable fact of life. 

A couple weekends ago, I was perhaps the coldest I’ve ever been. It was the night of the first real snowfall. By the way, I should say that I do like snow — I know few people willing to debate the peacefulness and elegance of a couple inches’ accumulation — and snowball fights are arguably one of the superior ways to exact subtle revenge on friends and enemies.

So I was enjoying hurling snowballs at my friends, but as night fell, the cold crept in. It snuck through my skin, settling so deeply that I couldn’t imagine life without it. Wandering around Old Campus, walking to Brick Oven Pizza — by the time we returned home, I was shaking. My hands were stiff and perhaps a little grey. Even my brain was cold, my thoughts frozen into fragile icicles. It took me several hours and cups of tea to thaw.

Tea takes up the noble battle against the cold — a warm mug resuscitates even the most perilously grey and purple hands. Burning your tongue? That’s a social construct if anything is — any sip of chamomile or lemon-ginger or hibiscus is worth it. 

If tea is the hero of winter, iced drinks and ice cream are the cold’s secret, villainous accomplices. To consume them, I must cocoon myself deep in the warmest part of Willoughby’s or the Silliman dining hall, otherwise the cold attacks me on two fronts, from both inside and out, slowly transforming me into an icicle of a human being.

If I could hibernate until April I would. But alas. I will be stocking up on tea and curling up, watching old movies with my friends whenever possible, waiting until there are buds on the trees.

When necessary, I’ll trek across campus with the rest of Yale’s despondent huddled masses, hands shoved in my pockets, head burrowed in my coat. If you pass me on the street, please don’t say hello. It’s too cold for that.