Out of the Cold

On Monday morning I will be heading down to Jamaica for almost a month. And this is what I am not taking with me: a parka, a wool hat and lined gloves, a heavy scarf and my Uggs. What I’d really like to do is build a huge fire and burn all those things along with several pairs of winter weight leggings and wool sweaters that I have gotten way too familiar with this winter. I can’t wait to slip my feet into flipflops and have my toenails painted some outrageous color.

I’m also leaving Steve’s closet behind. When I come home in March, there will no longer be a closet, redolent of marijuana and crowded with all the clothes he hardly ever wore. Shelves and shelves of shirts he bought in every country we visited and then forgot he owned. Racks of ties he gave up wearing years ago. Beautiful suits he wore to funerals or the occasional meeting at a bank. While I’m gone, his closet will be ripped out and remade into an extension of my study.

My therapist says he admires how practical I am about being a widow, creating a new life, a new space for myself as a woman living alone. It does make sense but it is a struggle—like putting on the leggings, the sweater, the parka, the hat, the scarf, the gloves, the boots, everything you need to keep yourself warm and safe on a bitterly cold day. I’ll be glad when it’s spring.