A few nights ago for the second night in a row, we had temperatures well below freezing. At 18 degrees it was a record, or near record low. We rarely ever have cold like that here in Charleston, so there is a sort of urgency in the air, especially at night.

It’s cold beyond bracing. It’s cold even with a flannel shirt, sweatshirt and heavy coat on. One senses the cold permeating the atmosphere and chilling one’s body from deep within. That to me is really scary. Getting cold at night in my apartment because it’s extremely cold and I’ve heeded the power company’s request to lower the thermostat to prevent the need for rolling power blackouts, makes me realize how much we can be at the mercy of the weather. I reiterate, we’re simply not used to such bitter cold this far south.

Sometimes I actually enjoy it when I’m outside and it’s very cold, but I’m bundled up good in layers of clothing, have a nice snug cap on, and feel warm and comfortable. Until I don’t any longer, and the cold starts to seep in, and that miserable feeling of pushing against limits of tolerance for cold sets in. What was once a pleasant late afternoon walk with invigorating cold air, turns into something else — a quickened pace and loss of any further desire to experience the nice ambience of winter as it just was but which has suddenly become a signal of danger, of unpreparedness, and of all of a sudden not being right with this world in this small park in winter. Meanwhile a group of geese fly overhead to the small lake, oblivious to my sense of urgency to get back to my car. I begin a flash dance of rumination in my head. I think too much. Winter has turned its benign face away from me and darkness is coming soon.

It’s at that point that I can sometimes feel like I’m dying. If I get cold at night and don’t have enough cover on, I begin shaking and drawing my meager blanket tighter until finally I stagger up and retrieve a heavy blanket and curl up in it in a fetal position. It analogous to when you have a fever and chills and are shaking and wrapping up to keep warm. Two different causes for an attack on the body with remarkable similarities. It’s the body’s fight or flight response.

When I get in my car and get the heat started after a walk in rare, bitterly cold weather, soon the warmth to my body is restored and I begin to relax. Similarly, when I feel the chill outside in my little bedroom fortress and have taken refuge in a heavy blanket and turned up the thermostat, relief again seeps in as the cold skulks away, defeated.

Excessive heat and cold are hard, physical reality, but also are symbols, if not harbingers of dying and death, pure and simple. Nature’s unforgiving side. Just look at what happened in Buffalo, NY this past week. It must have been terrifying, even for people accustomed to monster snow storms and blizzards. This time a lot of people died. Additionally, large swaths of the country were beset by fierce blizzards and unrelenting, record cold. I would not last long up there.