Even though I've never followed sports, watching the Winter Olympics tends to bring out the Canadian patriot in me. As a young child, I learned to figure skate, ski and appreciate the beauty of televised curling tournaments while noshing pistachios alongside my father. Living in a city known for its approximately 7 months of winter, I never really questioned the importance of such activities in the life of a growing girl.
Looking back, every Canadian winter is a kind of everyman's Olympics. In elementary school, we were only allowed to spend recess indoors if the temperature dropped below -23 degrees Celsius, and our 15 minute breaks were preceded by a mandatory period of snowpants, mitten, toque and scarf-donning. Once outside, we made snowmen, licked the metal climbing bars--I only remember getting my tongue stuck once--and played "freeze tag." Our field trips, all of which I took for granted, included skating on the pond at a nearby park and snowshoeing at a nature preservation center.
High school ushered in a new, recess-free era. I vowed I would never go outside again in winter unless I had to, as the temperature (without the windchill) could (and did) easily reach -30 degrees Celsius. In the morning, my father would start the engine of his 14-year-old car about 15 minutes before we left the house. The car was plugged into the house via an extension cord all night to keep the engine from freezing, but without this brief heating-up period, my dad and I might freeze over ourselves before work and school.
Now that I live in the U.S., homeostasis is certainly easier come the winter months. Yet sometimes, when the wind blows warm in February or I find myself having to turn on the air conditioner in a stuffy, inexplicably sweltering building, I miss that coldness that made me so aware of the beating heart struggling to keep me warm; that snuggling under the comforter for another 5 minutes before shivering into the kitchen for hot chocolate and a kiss good morning from my mother; those drives with my father to school in his crumbling vehicle before sunrise, MBD or Shlomo Carlebach songs filling the darkness, driving over the river that divides the city, only the road visible in the streetlamp light, thinking to myself that the world really is a very narrow bridge.
