I wake in the night and listen. The reassuring rumble tells me that the furnace is still on. It's good news and bad. It means we have heat but at this hour I visualize the dollar bills that might just as well be fuel.
I can't fall back to sleep. I walk through the dark living room, get a glass of water and pull my robe tighter. I'm awake and afraid in the cold night. My fear of cold has an ancient echo; I listen for the furnace at night the way my Polish ancestors woke in their huts to check on the fire.
February is to winter what Wednesday is to the workweek: If we can get through February, even snow in April won't rock us. With only 28 days, February is the longest month, and we secretly count it down.
In many wedding albums there is a picture of the groom carrying the bride over the threshold. That odd custom is also about staying warm. In ancient times, when a woman left her father's home and was set down on the hearth of her new home, she was in the most important spot in that house. She literally kept the home fires burning.
Temperature is part of my wedded story. I came to Albany from Baltimore — where there is just one significant snowstorm each year. I married a man from Northern Ontario where winter runs from September to May and wind chill is scoffed at. "When Canadians have 30 below, they mean it," he says; "Wind chill is for wimps." So for that marriage I had to learn to dress for cold. In Toronto, I bought boots that were good to 30 degrees below zero.
But I learned that physical acclimation is real. My first winter in upstate New York, I thought I'd die. My boots were good below freezing, but my fingers could barely tie them. I chattered and shook indoors and out. Every year it got easier. Now I complain about the cold, but I no longer imagine myself part of the Donner party.
I have learned that there is also an emotional acclimation to cold. A quote from Camus is taped inside the cabinet where I get my coffee mug each morning. It says: "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." Some days that tells me that I have enough beach memories to cling to on the slippery slope of February, and other days it is the word "invincible" that reminds me that living in cold does indeed build character.
But having a warm house is important. I can't swear that my first marriage ended solely over the thermostat setting, but for years I never went on a second date with a man whose response to my "I'm cold," was "Put on a sweater."
Now I'm happily married to a man who knows that cold hands do not mean a warm heart, and that a big heating bill is better than roses. But surprisingly, I've grown too. I am willing, in this new life and marriage, to go and put on that cost-saving sweater.
The word comfortable did not originally refer to being contented. Its Latin root, confortare, also means to strengthen. Hence it's use in theology: the Holy Spirit is The Comforter; not to make us comfy, but to make us strong. This too is February's task. We may not be warm, but we are indeed comforted; we are strong and we are counting the days.
Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. DianeOCameron@gmail.com.