By Daniel Dunaief
We recognize and register the temperature as soon as we leave our climate controlled house, car or office and step foot outside.
Cold, windy air might cause us to raise our shoulders, protecting our necks the way frightened turtles might pull back towards the shell when they sense a threat.
We have developed a real feel temperature or a “it feels like” temperature. Yes, it’s 28 degrees, but it feels like 12, which, to some, is more like negative 20.
How people experience temperature varies widely. An 85 degree day, with bright sunshine, could make one person feel as if he’s ready to conquer the world and is absorbing the sun’s energy.
Another person, say me, for example, might step out into that same temperature and instinctively search for shade, an air conditioner or a place near the water.
Many of us have friends, coworkers, spouses, children or roommates who prefer temperatures that are diametrically opposed to our own heat or cold sensitivity.
If my house were, say, 66 degrees, I would likely feel comfortable, while my wife would probably come into my home office wearing a sweater, gloves and a frown.
Taking out the financial part of the equation, people can and often do battle for control of the thermostat.
Differences between the sexes can explain some of this temperature disconnect.
Beyond describing the different cultures, expectations, communications and score keeping between men and women, the metaphor from the book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” also might aptly capture the temperature differences, as Venus, with its gaseous carbon dioxide atmosphere, is the hottest planet and Mars is the fourth hottest. Neptune, incidentally, is the coldest.
While the gender generalization may apply in some cases, that’s never been my family’s reality. My daughter and I tend to run hotter, while my wife and son are cooler and prefer some heat as a counterbalance.
During the extremes of either season, half of the family is comfortable while the other half is either looking to dive into a pool of ice water or is eager to sit with a book near a roaring fire.
Many years ago, my wife and I attended a spectacularly hot college reunion. Well, it was incredibly hot for me. My wife left my side for a moment and returned with some ice cubes. She dumped them down my back and was shocked when I didn’t arch my back or pull my shirt out of my waist to dump the ice on the floor. The ice provided welcome relief.
The moderate middle tends to keep the family happy, as no one is complaining about uncomfortable extremes.
Given temperature sensitivities in our house, we all tend to be closest to our temperature best in the fall and spring.
Of course, as with everything else in life, different stages bring different temperature sensitivities.
When my wife was pregnant with each of our children, her body ran much hotter. We took winter walks that would have been almost inconceivable, so to speak, before we conceived.
The passage of decades, however, has changed how I experience temperature. I have become much more comfortable sitting in a warm baseball stadium and am not so tough when confronted with single digit temperatures.
To be sure, I’m still not able to wallow in a jacuzzi or an unusually hot pool for any length of time without feeling as if my skin is starting to boil.
Recognizing that what constitutes comfortable temperatures varies, I wonder why people so often imagine hell as a place with fire and brimstone.
The poet Robert Service wrote a wonderful and lengthy poem about Sam McGee, which a bus driver recited from memory when my wife and I took a trip to Alaska. With beluga whales we could see surfacing in the distance as we drove along the coast, she shared “The Cremation of Sam McGee” about someone who left Tennessee to search for gold in the Arctic only to discover that the cold was much easier to find than gold.
Sam is so spectacularly cold that he delights in the idea of being cremated when he inevitably dies.
For Sam, and perhaps many others, heat might be far preferable to a frigid afterlife.
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