Winter is giving me writer's block.
My blog is about my life and my interactions with the world. My inspiration comes from experiences and observations. My decision to write a daily blog comes from these things. But, in recent days, I'm living a very quiet life. Winter and the harsh, biting cold, has me opting, when I can, to simply stay in and stay warm.
Going to work is a real ordeal because I am typically the first 'pick up' for the driver and the bus interior is freezing cold. It takes a while for the buses to warm and even when they are, opening the doors to let someone out or to take someone in, all heat is lost. By the time I get to work the frame of my wheelchair is painfully cold to the touch. Cold seeps through my gloves and the rubber on my tires creaks and complains as I push my way into the building.
On the way home, it sits in the back of the car and by the time we get home the seat is frozen solid and Joe carefully opens it, aware that the seating could crack if he isn't gentle with it. I feel sorry for the chair. My power chair, on the other hand, gets me around well, although the ice can form tricky barriers for me. But sitting in the chair while driving through the cold wind chills me dangerously.
The last time I went out I came back with lips that were frozen and deeply chapped. I bought some lip balm and I'm afraid the gay in me has a wee bit too much fun applying it as if my 'milk and honey' balm was, instead, bright ruby red lipstick. And that's what passes for fun in the dead of winter in Toronto for me.
So, I may miss a day or two over the next few weeks as we slowly march towards spring. Yesterday morning I sat pondering something to write, even though I'd spent my entire Sunday in. I wanted a break from the cold. In the end I found I had nothing, really, to say.
I imagine there are others, with and without disabilities, that are gradually giving way to 'indoor time' as a means to just coping in such frigid temperatures. I wonder if they, like me, got unreasonably excited to hear that on Friday it's going to get up to 0 degrees?
Slipping away now, am I, to put on a bit more of my lip balm. Hoping soon to pucker up and give Winter a kiss goodbye. I'll even wear ruby red for that!
I'm looking forward to spring Dave and here in Scotland we don't have quite the same cold as Canada. I feel like a weather vane as cold=pain BUT the daffodils and crocuses are out, maybe spring is coming
ReplyDeleteOh in Ireland - rain is a killer
ReplyDeleteMy brother told me that all the snowdrops had been out in England over the past couple of weeks. I sighed and enjoyed them from afar! Thank you for explaining the added agony of winter for a wheelchair and its user! :) It's time for spring--only 49 days until Easter.
ReplyDeleteThis winter has somehow been hard on blog topics - I sit in front of the screen waiting for inspiration that doesn't come.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing to say. It's still white outside. I'm happy the weatherman's 8-14" of new snow turned out to be less than an inch, but the inch covered all the blacktop, and then froze, so the white is there even if it's not very thick.
OTOH, it did put a new white coating over all the dirty snow that hasn't melted from the previous snowstorms.
I wonder what the birds and the squirrels are finding to eat.
And wondering if anyone is even thinking of how to design a wheelchair out of a plastic of some kind that doesn't get so cold.
Alicia
Dave, I've been reading this book with interest and pleasure over recent weeks, and wonder if you've heard of it? Something to tide you over the last of these wintry days...with mugs of tea...?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.farfromthetree.com/#
It has been a terribly cold winter here too, (Winnipeg). It should be a balmy -11 Friday, that sounds wonderfully warm to me now. What ever helps you get through the winter, rock the red!
ReplyDeleteL
I'll second the recommendation for Andrew Solomon's Far from the Tree.
ReplyDeleteMy crocuses are out of the ground by 3", but they are surrounded with snow and ice. We are having unseasonable weather here on Vancouver Island, where usually by this time I am shovelling dirt rather than 18" of snow! Not this year.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone fancies a virtual wander-around, then the UK's Eden Project can be viewed via Google Streetview. That link starts you in the "Outdoor Biome" which is basically the great British outdoors on a slightly cloudy summer day, with a variety of wild and cultivated plants. You can move around in the Streetview window, or pick up the yellow pegman in the Map window and drop him where you want him.
ReplyDeleteThe big bubble structures are the white patches to the north of the start position on the map. Picking up the pegman is the only route in, but the paths inside are mapped. The northernmost one is the Rainforest Biome and the slightly smaller one to the southeast of that is the Mediterranean Biome.
(The other white patches are variations on visitor/education centres.)
The pictures are about five years old so some things have changed, and it's not the same as being there... but I thought some of you might enjoy it.