Cold Winters

When I was young I remembered only the bitterely cold days and nights. It seemed to have always been freezing, with me sitting on endlessly hot radiators, getting sore bums, with my feet and toes ice cold. It was miserable, a situation that lasted for three gruelling years.

A bit later on, as I grew older, the cold never abatted. Now at college, the winters continued to bite. The freezing wind would simmer into every part of my body, including of course, my shoes.

Being considered as one of the layabout students as referred to by the English, I would inevitably go around with rugged-like paranaphelia for cloths, the odd pair of shoes, and/or boots that would leak in different parts.

It was not bad enough I needed to endure the freeze at the bottom of my legs, but I now had to put up with leekage and seepage—it was a double bonus of cold, and iced water griping my lower limbs.

I would say to myself this is the beautiful life I had to try to get used to. It was the 1970s, in parts of England when everything was sever, cold, perishing, freezing as one vicar, I was living with used to tell me every morning, afternoon and evening.

Drolling at the news on the radio and looking at the kitchen table which his wife set, he used to make his remarks as if we didn’t know what was going on outside, or couldn’t fathom the hissing trees beating down by the wind not once but zillion times.

I used to say to myself I wish he would save us his chapter and verse and turn the heaters up, but this was not to be because of the expense, expenditure, money and investment.

It was not actually quite as miserable life as it sounds, there were elements of fun, joyous great debates on Musims, Christains, love, Jesus , and the ever-so-boring homework. I remember in between, the snow, sleet and ice, I remember my chapped knuckles torn by the winds, huddling my coat and my face against the snow drifts and the rain.

I remember the way I huddled under the blankets, with my knees right up to my chin very near my mouth, while my toes begged for warmness. I remember huddling my hands to my crotch and quickly taking them away.

In the 1980s things began to change, I was older, and still studying but in a flat apartment I call my own. It was full blast heating, and I didn’t care, or give a damn about the expense, as long as I was warm. No more cold feet, no more cold hands as I ate the favourite fish and chips.

You braved the weather and went out because in the end you were going back somewhere cosy! The 1980s, although still cold, was not really ferocious, although in certain parts of the country bouts of power cuts occurred in sever winter stormy days. No, the 1980s was milder but still cold if you get my drift.

The weather was slowly and perceptively changing I thought which was ok with me, it was no more cold slithering down your spine, or finding its way into places you’d rather feel protected.

In the early 1990s, I made a complete 180-degree turnaround and left the time and the place. The weather in this part of the world, in Jordan was changing as well. It was a very mild winter in February 1991 when the guns on Baghdad heaved. I remember thinking I came here in 1986 during November and the country was bludgeoned with snow. Now, in February it was zilch.

It was to be for the rest of the 1990s. While I remember on odd winter days there was rain and snow , we had frequently sunny bright days in March and April, being so hot there would be no need for a jacket.

For us, or me such days felt eerie, unnormal, as if this was not right. The four seasons were clearly seeing the end. The weather was changing, people kept saying it was the holes in the ozone layer that was the guilty culprit, but faith in God continued with many performing rain prayers.

Come the new Millenuim and 21st Century, it was more changes. International agreements like Koyoto, and other conventions in Rio, South Africa and the like were being conveniently ignored because what was at stake was slowing the production cycle, lowering productivity and possibly industrialization and depressing profit.

In 2003 I remember we had a snow blizzard in Amman, but today, and for the last three years or so, the rains have been late in coming. Mild winters, little showers, a check to the weather system. We are now having rain Mays, like what happened in 2010, its creepy, we are not used to it.

I suppose like people and economies, the weather must change as well as if the connection between all three shouldn’t be made, and what is happening is as normal as chalk and cheese!