to the bone

i just wore a sweater over a shell, after all i spent time in colorado and a little chill is nothing. by noon the prairie wind cut right through the sweater on my two trips to the art building and one to home for lunch. decided to were my lined rain coat back to school. by five it was really chilly, rainy, dark, and depressing. really un-colorado. on the last leg of my walk home i look out across a very flat harvested field of corn. it is really flat because they cut the corn right down to the roots for cattle food. looking out forever through grey air over brown ground made me wonder how any pioneer person survived. no tv, radio, music, sound (other than a spouse and probably complaining children). if you were lucky you had books and could read the classics around a fire. the evenings could be okay, but those days with not one house close by, no interchange of ideas, no running to town, and if your house was not really air tight, probably you were wearing the same clothes day after day. who would want to take a bath with the wind whistling through the house. my windows are not even attached at the bottom in some rooms so they sort of breath with the wind. on days like today with the wind blowing, i come home to find my front door blown open and even when it is closed it is signifigantly colder around the door entrance. in winter i put quilts over the railing around the entrance to stop the chill from invading the living area. i have plastic over my windows. when i take a shower the cold air from the bedroom windows pull at the shower curtian creating a chill. needless to say showers are not long. i could shut the door, but then my cat would scratch at the door to get in if he was outside and to get out if he was in. it may sound old fashioned but i have long underwear which i use when it is cold. so i layer and wrap up in throws and drink hot coffee. i know it was at least ten time worse years ago. how did they ever survive. no wonder willa cather wrote the story about the lady who once she went to new york to straighten out an inheritance, did not want to return to the prairie. if your house is tight and cosy and you can walk from your kitchen to your garage into a heated car in which to drive to heated workplace, well, you just don't realize how fortunate you are. especially if you sit around a fire in the evening with your family. now i have to go out again for supervision at the cafeteria and am trying to decide whether to walk or not. i need the exercise. maybe another layer will do it. then i can look like the kids in snowsuits.