When I opened my apartment door this morning, my spirits dropped quite a few percentage points. Not only was it cold, as in, go-back-inside-and-get-a-warm-coat cold, it was also pouring. I sighed, ducked my head, and made a run for my car.
By the time I made it inside my office, I was slightly soggy, incredibly cold, and in a fairly bad mood. I turned the electric kettle on straight away, and tried to cheer myself by anticipating the hot tea that would soon be in my hand.
I drank a cup. Then another, but I couldn’t seem to shake the cold from myself. Finally I realized that the building itself is what was making me cold, as we have not yet turned the he
at on this season. It is only the beginning of October after all, and in my family, it’s practically a sin to turn the heat on at a premature date, such as October 14th. In
So I skulked over to the thermostat on the wall and made the adjustment, instantly gratified by the sound of the unit kicking in. My shame was thick in the air around me, until the smell of memory reached my nose.
You know that smell associated with central heat that comes strongly the first use of the year, then faintly all through the winter? I associate this smell with warmth and comfort, because it welcomes me home when coming in from the bitter coldness of winter. However, that’s not the only meaning it holds for me.
Beginning when we moved to Kentucky when I was 6-years-old, I cannot remember a cold day in my childhood when my brothers and I did not fight over whose turn it was to sit on the heat duct in the living room of the house we grew up in. It was big enough for two if you were willing to squish together, always attempting to subtly ease the other person off to one side. Pulling your shirt wide over the vent made you look like a tent sporting a head.
Our backs and bottoms would roast, but getting up was an automatic forfeit of your spot, so we’d bear it as long as possible. Sometimes Mom would make us take a break when the room itself got too cold due to the deprivation caused by we the heat thieves, but usually we’d rotate turns throughout the school day, working math problems and compositions until we were red faced and hot to the touch.
One by one, my older brothers finished their time in home school, leaving fewer bodies in the rotation, until finally Scotty and I were the last two kids in the house. We didn’t have to fight for our spots anymore, but since there is no fun without competition, we’d struggle to keep the entire vent to ourselves.
I love these vent sitting memories, and when the strong smell of heat hit me this morning, the first of the year, they turned my sour morning into nostalgic comfort.
I think I’ll go make another cup of tea…
