The weather turned cold here right around Thanksgiving, and it’s stayed cold ever since. Nobody was quite ready for it, except the local ski hill owners, but I thought I was adjusting pretty well. Every morning I dressed warmly and took my morning walk, until last Saturday when a mixture of sleet, rain and snow coated Iowa roads with two inches of ice. No more walks down my gravel road until there’s a thaw and the forecast doesn’t hold hope for one.
So I find creative ways to exercise indoors and try not to whine about the cold, but last night I started complaining. I was snuggled in bed, able to concentrate on my reading once my body heat had warmed the sheets. Then I noticed my hands were dry, itchy dry. I needed hand lotion, but that would mean getting out of the warm bed and shivering in the cool air again. Finally, I made a run for the lotion and then dived into bed again.
As the sheets warmed and my hands softened, my heart did too. I thought about all the women before me who never have hand lotion and how painful their cracked, chapped skin must have been. And if they had anything to rub into their skin, I wondered how bad the lard or goose grease smelled, and how cold the run from bed to lotion and back was for them. My attitude changed as I rubbed my hands and thought about those pioneer women. Instead of complaining, I was grateful for a warm house, for new sheets and a comfortable bed, for smooth skin and for legs that function.
So I’m coining a new phrase – hand lotion grace. Whenever I get whiny this winter, a sure symptom that my attitude is growing calloused, I’ll head for my hand lotion and let it’s luxurious grace soften my dry hands and my hard heart.
While I’m thinking of it, I’d better add hand lotion to my shopping list. I’ll need a lot of it this winter.
