That title is extremely overdramatic, but I felt like being very extra, so very extra I will be. I’m in a writing mood, but I don’t think I have the time to sit down and actually write something- I mean, I’m writing this blog post right now, but that’s more because I’m writing out of obligation… well. I mean. I don’t consider writing blog posts the type of writing I’m saying I want to do, so yeah, I don’t have time to write today.

I’m rambling. Sorry.

I’m writing about yesterday. Which is a bit odd, since I probably should’ve written yesterday about yesterday instead of about yesterday today, but I’m here writing about yesterday today so I guess there’s not much I can do about it now.

We went outside. My whole family had sat in the living room talking about whatever, and we decided to go out together for the night. We were planning on catching the sunset over the High Line downtown, but turns out the High Line was reservation only because of COVID; which sucks, but it is what it is. We did manage to catch the sunset though, and it was quite beautiful.

I didn’t wear much. Just a black bomber jacket, a thin button up, ripped jeans, sneakers, a cap, and an itchy scarf.

Recently, I haven’t been getting cold. Right now, I’m sitting next to my open window, which is spitting cold air onto my thighs, which are exposed because I’m wearing jean shorts, and on my fingers, which are slowly numbing as I type on the keyboard.

Perhaps I’m suited for cold weather. Just a few weeks ago, when it snowed a foot or so in New York City, I had gone outside in only my bomber jacket and jeans as well. No gloves, no scarf. My mom went into the grocery store, and I waited outside because I wanted to. I took a picture and sent it to my friends, and my thumbs were so numb in the cold I could barely move them- with each press on my phone’s screen, they would twang with quiet pain, frayed nerves singing with stimulation.

I hadn’t felt cold. As a matter of fact, I had voluntarily shoved my hands wrist deep into the snow, just to see if I would feel something. I didn’t.

I don’t know why. Typically, I’m average on the cold sensitivity scale; I would shiver and tremble, needed gloves in twenty degree weather, would wear scarves and hats when I deemed it fit to. But now, I wake, read the weather for twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, and decide to throw on my father’s thin jacket that I had found in my closet one Sunday for a walk outside.

I just finished my bottle of diet coke. Hold on.

Okay. I’m back. With water.

(Yes, I’m healthy. I swear I ensure my own safety, despite going outside with practically nothing on. It’s just that I don’t feel cold anymore.)

You know, I think that I don’t feel cold anymore because I’ve learned to ignore it. There was this one day when I had still felt the cold where it was thirty-eight degrees outside, and I had gone out in a thick sweater and jeans, knowing that I would end up shivering.

Of course, I was right. Halfway through my journey to 105th street, my hands were trembling and my nose runny under my mask. But I kept thinking, it’s just cold, it’s just cold, it’s nothing, you’ve dealt with worse (even though I have not endured much worse compared to some mild cold, due to my fortunate upraising), and slowly my hands stopped trembling.

I read some articles from people living in really cold places, and they all say that they’ve learned to live with the cold. They take cold showers, and “get used to it”, which seems to be the opposite of what I’m doing- which is to live without it, and to ignore it.

I wonder if I’ll feel this way in the Spring; will I abandon this immunity to cold and instead gain immunity to warmth? Will I, instead of ignoring it like I did with ice, embrace it? Will I learn to live with it? Or will I ignore it, and forget cold entirely? Will that make me more immune to frosty temperatures or more vulnerable to them?

Anyways.

At the sunset place yesterday, which was by the Hudson River on the West, my brother took some cool photos with his camera. I took some photos of him too, and they turned out pretty great.

We stayed from the beginnings of sunset to the dark night sky. In the cold wind of the river, we stood and let our hair billow in the breeze, watching the dying embers of a star we know still lives; then we walked a mile away from the harbor and to the skyscrapers, replacing temporary novas with immortal electric constellations that twinkled in a feeble substitute.

The lights don’t ask questions, you see- they don’t die either. They don’t explode every day, and if they do, then we throw them out. They’re substitutes; and they don’t ask for anything else other than to be used.

I’m listening to Heat Waves by Glass Animals on loop right now. It’s a good song, a true “vibe” as the kids like to say it these days, and it makes me feel many emotions all at once. For one reason or another, it reminds me of yesterday; even though nothing significant happened during that walk along the Hudson, I pray to remember it.

I pray to remember. And by writing, I have said amen.