I had prided myself my entire life for loving the cold, I used to say I hated summer because you were always sweaty, and hot, and moody. But what I ignored was that I could not love the cold, because I did not know what the REAL cold was.
After the end of September, the weather started to get chillier by the day, and it wasn’t just that, the days were getting shorter, the nights longer, and the sky grayer. At first it was bearable, it was okay, but by late December and the whole month of January, I would wake up only to see the forecast for the day was a maximum of 0 degrees Celsius (32 Farenheit), which means, it was below freezing everyday, and sometimes the real feel was of -18 or -25. I don’t know if you can picture it.
Thing is, the cold was bad, but when it was sunny, even if I couldn’t feel my feet, it wasn’t so terrible. Every now and then we would get some clear skies, and me and one of my friends, from back when I was an Au Pair (long story for another time), would go to lie down on the fields surrounding the Hippodrome of Chantilly after French class. To get some Vitamin D through my pores felt so good, I never wanted to leave.
Worst case was when it was equally as cold but with no sun and pouring rain. Those kind of days I felt like my soul left me, because it wasn’t just one, but a succession of sunless dead days that seemed to overlap one with the other, some weeks I wouldn’t go out for 72 hours on a row from where I was living, so my mood just dropped.
I felt blue, moody and without drive, I stopped taking care of my skin, my appearance, the way I dressed, I didn’t wear any make up, I stopped everything. This wasn’t all to blame to the Winter, it had also a lot to do with my work and what I was doing at the moment, but the weather did affect me.
In March I moved to Paris, in the most tumultuous, messy, scary, rushed way I could imagine (this story is also for later), and I happened to move just a week before Spring began. The weather was still chilly and rainy but, the temperatures started to rise significantly.
The 4th of April we had the first really warm day of the year, everybody was wearing short sleeves and sunglasses, on the streets you could see people eating on the Terraces. Parks, squares and just green spaces in general, were flooded with people picnicking or having lunch before heading back to work. It seemed as if a dark aura had been lifted from the city, and the sleeping habitants of Paris had finally woken up.
Everything seemed to be alive and colorful, they even planted flowers at Tulleries and there was not even one of those green chairs left to occupy around the fountain. The trees had flourished and I felt something in my chest grooming as well.
I put on a light blue shirt, my mom’s orange floral scarf and headed to Champs de Mars to picnic, I met with some friends I had just met, and we listened to music, drank cheap wine and munched on snacks until the sun went down, we waited to watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle, and we didn’t leave until it was almost too late to catch the last metro.
Now I can say that, I used to underestimate the sun greatly. It is incredible what a little sunlight and some warm weather can do for you.
My heart grew two times bigger that day.
Lonely in Paris 