Jane: Colder

"Cold weather is hard on cars but good on people. . . . we say 'Hooooo, it's a cold one out there. You hear the weather this morning? Cold out there. Terrible.' Except it's not terrible at all. You're . . . phenomenally alive, your whole body, the nervous system and along the cortex and in the marrow of the bones, every part of the body has got the message: 'Heat. Let's go. Come on, team Little more H, now. Let's have some H.'

There is no depression at twenty below. Human depression occurs frequently in the low fifties, and when it gets into the nineties there's plenty of latitude for self-pity and grief at your sad wasted life and the people who let you down and exploited your vulnerability, but at twenty below the body turns passionate. You venture out and every internal organ is up on its feet doing the schottische, your skin is singing the 'Habanera,' At twenty below, nature sends us a message: Die. And the body says, 'Hell no, we won't go!'"

from Garrison Keillor, "Cold" in We Are Still Married.