COLD

Tuesday I wrote about darkness.  Today, I'll write about why cold gets a bad rap.  And it's not just the temperature.  As a culture, we've chosen to call a respiratory infection a cold.  When a disease gets named after you, you are either brilliant or hated, or maybe a little of both.

When I reference my favorite book on the planet, I see almost an entire column dedicated to synonyms of the word cold.  And four of the other lines in that column are for cold-blooded (which continues on the next page.)  We seriously have a lot of words to use when we talk about cold.  How many of them do not automatically have a negative connotation?  Not many for me.  Most speak of misery, death, anti-social tendencies, and boredom.  But does cold have to be bad?

Cold preserves.  Think about what refrigeration does.  It allows us to keep foods for longer than would be safe if we left them out at room temperature.  Cold slows the growth of organisms that can be harmful to us.

Cold reduces inflammation, soothing injuries.

OK, I'm out of good things about cold.  And I need to buy more sweaters.  Is it summer yet?