I remember reading a list of ways to keep cool in the summer–I think it was from an American Girl magazine or related book. One of the ideas was to imagine the coldest scene you could think of and place yourself there. I would sit, close my eyes, imagine I was in Anartica, buried in a mound of crunchy snow, winds howling by. Only my face sticking out from my cool cool haven. Or in an ice cavern–one like you’d see only in a movie, white puffs of breathe streaming from my mouth, sliding around on frozen icy surfaces, so cold.

I think about that now, sitting here in mid-February, so so tired of the cold. It’s the last push of winter, and I’ve been cold for so long that warmth is just a memory. Cold has become a part of me; as much as my green eyes and size 10 feet. I am cold, have always been cold, will always be cold.

But I remember this trick of my youth, and hope it will serve me now. I close my eyes, think only of the sun. Not the milky, weak, winter sun that I have become so familiar with, but the dazzling, scorching sun of summer. I picture its beams, radiating down towards me, arms outstretched, wanting to gather them in, let them seep through my pores into my very bones, warming me from the outside in and the inside out until I burn with a warmth so deep that it purges the cold, boils my blood, stays with me forever.