Heat is a good case study for me. Over the last week plus, our building has been doing major pipe work and we have had no heat. It's been a cool spring, and we've been kind of cold inside- wearing sweaters and socks, drinking lots of tea, and on a chilly rainy recent day, going to bed early to get under the warm covers.
When I lived in Berlin in 1995, I had to heat my apartment using a coal oven. That meant schlepping huge buckets of coal up from a tiny cellar, trying to place the individual bricks in a fire-friendly formation, lighting the whole contraption, and praying... that it would actually catch fire in the oven, burn through, and subsequently warm the tiles, which would in turn radiate heat into the room.
I think it's pretty obvious that I wasn't much good at this, and my apartment, which was my first independent one and which I absolutely adored, had the added disadvantage in winter of being on the ground floor. That meant no one heated below me either, and my floors were ice cold as a result.
Berlin has long, dark and wet winters, and my apartment was always cold and damp. A dear friend visited and wore a full sweat suit, scarf, hat, two feather blankets, and towels on top of her to bed every night and was bitterly cold nonetheless.
My boyfriend, now husband, knew how to do the coal burning thing well, but had a bathroom that didn't have an oven or a heating unit of any sort. He was on the top floor if his building and the cold air came from every side and the roof. Going to his bathroom on a cold winter night took an unbelievable amount of courage, and I often literally ran there in preparation when I finally capitulated.
And of course, those youthful, and very memorable adventures, were nothing compared to the stories of so many people who have to endure cold in much worse conditions and over much longer stretches of time.
Elderly people are among the most vulnerable. In my current building in recent weeks, those who are home bound have had a very hard time.
And that doesn't hold a candle in turn to stories that I've become acquainted with at JDC-- of elderly people, Jews, in Ukranian villages who face an almost Siberian winter without running water and have to trudge to outside pumps, of leaky roofs and cold, damaged cement walls and outhouses. Not just for a few weeks, but for every winter of their lives...
It's miserable to be cold.. unless you are young I guess, and the situation is temporary. And then it's a good opportunity to be reminded of how wonderful and cozy it is to be warm again.
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