February is hard to imagine in t-shirt and shorts. Its relentlessness is the rub. Once it gets going there is no stopping until spring and even then, it reluctantly succumbs to the earth’s precession.
February is the reason Florida exist. It is hunker down time. It is a time of strained backs and unexpected heart attacks. It is also inspiring. Inspiring northerners to work hard for southern condos, Caribbean cruises, hot tubs, theatre tickets and subscriptions of all types; and inspiring introspection.
And so, I sit at the kitchen table listening to the Hammond B-3 of Jack McDuff on the radio. I hear predictions of 22 inches of snow before the blizzard blows through sometime tomorrow afternoon. I notice from the corner of my eye that it’s 12:22 and that the adjacent outdoor thermometer reads 22 °F. I first think how lucky I am to be warm and cozy, and then I realize there it is again, 22.
Numerology is not my thing but this winter the number 22 is significant. Twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit has stared at me from my car’s thermometer for weeks on end. For so long I have become acclimatized to it.
As if on autopilot I shed my heavy winter coat for a lighter one, even though 22 °F still awaits me each morning. My blood has thickened. I am heartier. What would have killed me in July, I now find a mere inconvenience. I try to remember the physiology, but forget it and just enjoy my newfound warmth.
Twenty-two is a magical number this year. The second year that increased jet stream gyrations suck frigid Artic air into Texas and turn the warmth of the Gulf into feet of snow burying the eastern seaboard: gyrations that ruin many a vacation and freeze a state full of oranges.
I am skeptical of the weeklong build up to this storm, but in the end admit that it is a brilliant blizzard. There have only been a few in my lifetime. That is if you ignore the winter long blizzards of 1976, 77, and 78. Those inspired me (a mailman at the time) to go back to school and get off the street.
Today is 2/2/11. Ummm … two 2’s, and then two times eleven get you another twenty-two. Okay, I have to stop. I cannot have cabin fever yet. It has only been a few hours. I am sure I have at least 22 books to read and probably twenty two hundred songs to listen to. I must get to work entertaining myself, but then type 22 into Google. This is a mistake.
It is a number and a year. It is highways in Canada, America, India, Iran, Israel, Japan and Vietnam to name a few. It is a bus route in New Jersey and an episode of The Twilight Zone. 22 is a construct of the human mind, a mind that needs language to represent the physical and emotional world.
Recently in Japan it was pointed out to me that our 150-letter text message limit is a limitless 150 words in kanji. With 150 words another world can be created but I won’t today. I will lightly lunch and at 2:22 have a shot of espresso, suit up and go out to attack the approximately 22 inches of snow that has blown into much higher drifts. All the while dreaming that next February I will find myself somewhere that is 22 °C.
Volume 5842 (4), 2/18/2011
