Lately I am obsessed with heat.

It’s my fourth winter in this chilly mountain town. I used to muddle through the cold mornings, much colder than they have been lately. I used to sleep, curled in a ball, trying not to move, studiously avoiding the moment when, like ice, an untouched piece of sheet would brush my skin.

I took some sort of odd pride in my suffering.

It felt noble, like it tied me to the seeming virtue of the underdog.

Maybe I needed the cold and the discomfort. Maybe it was part of scrubbing away the last remnants of my old life, a life based on…on…Well, I can’t quite identify my sin. But when I arrived here, I was certain of my guilt, my complicity in a world that takes and takes and takes.

Now? You just wouldn’t believe it if you saw me.

I sleep all night with my heated mattress pad turned all the way to HI even though HI is a bit much. In the mornings, you can barely tear me away from the little space heater I use to warm my feet. I have taken to hauling it out to the patio so I can have heat and the sound of the birds chirping.

I think this obsession with heat is really me crossing some indelible, no doubt, Scarlet Line.

I am claiming something: luxury, comfort, joy…

I am becoming addicted, in the most delicious way, to the sound of my own heart beating a foreign rhythm. I think you might call it contentment.

Contentment & ravenous desire! I am hungry for life.