Ode to heat

I know that this will seem an inappropriate post for those of you who read this from a warm summer day with windows open, or huddled inside the chill of the air conditioning to escape the blasting heat outside. But here there is none of that. Here there are howling winds and long chains of days with no hope of sunshine. And while it never gets to the misery of a Boston January day here, whipping wind and horizontal rain can make me long for the hiss and clang of my Cambridge radiators.

Here, of course, they don’t understand heat. It is as if the entire country, hearing that it was a South Pacific Island nation, decided we must be warm here. We look at the palm trees waving in the winds, and at lush beaches, and we assume that this means we need no heat. The fact that people have been shivering here for five or more months a year for the last 150 years just leads to a put-on-another-jumper mentality. And me, I put on another layer, and another, and another. And I feel vaguely embarrassed that dinner guests come in the house, take off their winter jackets, and then, half-way through dinner, get up from the table to put them back on. Ah, southern hospitality (only perhaps just a little two southern…).

The other night, I got home from work, smiled at the family and rushed to change out of damp work clothes and into the layers of at-home clothes it takes to sustain my body temperature in this weather. Long johns followed by a cotton layer followed by one layer of wool and another and another—as many as I can get on my body. I headed out, Michelin-man-like, to the dining room table and sat down to eat dinner.

And then the full impact of the day’s change came upon me. It was Heat Pump Day, the day when our house was transformed by a little plastic box which breathed out blissfully warm air. At the table, I shed layer after layer until I ate my clothes in what might be considered “inside-clothes,” and I didn’t even have the urge to put on a coat.

To say the heat pump has transformed our lives sounds hysterical or overwrought somehow, and yet it is realistically my experience of the change. For two months I have gone around wearing as many clothes as I could at once, having fingers too chilly to type accurately, praying for sun—the only heat source we had. I dreaded the grey days, the coming of evening. My shoulders hunched up against my ears and my muscles tightened in response to the constant chill. (On the plus side, I did work out every single day—exercise being my only door into feeling warm, even sweating!)

Now, after we put the kids to bed, Michael and I sit on our couch rather than retreating into a small and heatable room. People walk into the house and say, “Ah, it feels good in here!” as though the inside actually offers shelter from the outside. Naomi takes off her down coat during dinner. And we’re just generally nicer to each other. Warmer, even.

The woodstove was supposed to come this week too, and it didn’t. Did I fly into icy rage, though? No. I smiled (warmly) and said that it would be ok if they came next week. And I cuddled up to the heatpump and knew that all would be right with the world.

(pictures today have nothing to do with heat. The first two are of the mobile Dad and Jamie gave me my first Christmas in New Zealand. Now it blows kisses to the sea. The other shot is of Aidan playing soccer in the field at his school this morning. Of course looking at the sea is magnificent and takes my breath away, but more surprising is that turning my back to the sea is nearly as beautiful. Amazing.)