Our recent plunge into subzero weather has transformed me from a spindly old dame into a stout, full-figured Russian nesting doll. I’m literally encased inside layer after layer after layer of thick, weighty, wooly clothes. I’m not so much dressed as upholstered — in a grossly overstuffed sense.
As a consequence, walking is but a distant memory these frigid days. I can achieve forward momentum only by tipping from side to side, which gives me the fluid and lively gait of a wind-up toy. Or a short 
Frankenstein, something stiff and mechanical at any rate. Should I topple over, I will die. My feet will never touch ground from a horizontal position, they’ll stick straight out due to the layers and strata of underwear and leggings and pants, flailing uselessly to gain a toehold.
Winter, my friends, is a long, hard grind. Discomfort abounds and everyday living requires maximum effort. If you’re not mufflered and mittened and sweatered and hatted, if you’re not a swollen, slow-moving pile of
clothing, you’re chained to a washing machine — laundering load after load. And your carpet is aglitter with shards of road salt and sparkly fallout from Christmas cards. It’s really kind of dazzling when the sun’s just right. The floor twinkles and glimmers and winks until you finally haul out the vacuum and put a stop to all the flashy razzle-dazzle.
Should you decide to take a break from the drudgery and go shopping or visiting, your puffy new self bumps into people, crashes into displays, knocks stuff off shelves — you are an accident in progress. I am, anyway. I’m a pinball in the wintertime, careening from pillar to post and my mantra is ‘oh, sorry, excuse me, beg your pardon, whoops, did I do that?, could you help me up, uh-oh, let me pay for that, so sorry … ‘
So I park myself here. In my wide-aisled, uncluttered home, where I sit and drink coffee. Once in a while I’ll clamber to my feet and totter off to the bathroom, where I turn on the heat lamp and bask. Happy, once again, to feel a reminder of summertime’s sunny warmth. I miss my shorts. Heck, I miss my knees — they bent on demand.
Gosh, such good times.
copyright © 2018 the whirly girl
the whirly girl 
22 responses to “: winter-induced claustrophobia :”
Blimey, roll on Spring! Mind you, it does sound cosy …
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Oh, it’s cozy inside, all right. Step foot outside and it feels like an acid bath.
Okay, that might be exaggerating, but not by much 😬
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Also, please stop sending your bad weather over here. Anything you can feel, we can feel later! ;)
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Okay, I’ll try. Heck, you all pretty much scared Sideshow Don out of visiting England, so I owe you :o) I do so love the British — do it again.
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Yup– that’s about the size of it! Only you’ve made 30-below sound far more entertaining than it actually is. Great writing.
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🙃 Wow! that’s the best comment I can hope for. Thank you 😍
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I’m with you! After reading your post, I love imagining myself as a Russian doll. Today in my area it’s supposed to be above freezing in the afternoon. Maybe I’ll venture out of my cave. :)
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Get this: it’s supposed to be 50 degrees here on Friday! The wild weather is flipping crazy — that’s a 60 degree swing in temperature in the course of a week.
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Same weather pattern here!
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Isn’t this nuts? Yesterday it was 60 degrees at lunch and 25 at dinner. Today? The teens. Ai-yi-yi.
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Hehehehheheh…you actually made me feel better about being trapped in the house with the new layers of fat that I accumulated over the Holidays. I had oral surgery early Saturday morning and have not bee outside since. Silver lining.
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Heck, why torture yourself? Take it easy until May. You deserve some down time with a good dose of pampering :o)
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Thank you for the laughs. And your “sparkly fallout from Christmas cards” is such a great line! I get it; that stuff winds up in the strangest places, and sticks stubbornly to the lotion on my face.
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You’re so, so welcome. I get a kick out of whining, you know. It never fails to cheer me up. The glitter helped a little, too —- at first, then it became annoying. Like the houseguest who won’t leave. Ai-yi-yi.
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