The Week of Thinking About Being Cold

I'm a fan of the cold. I like my cozy sweaters and warm blankets, but that's a privilege of mine that most definitely isn't universal.

In class Tuesday, we discussed the groups of people who used to live along the Mississippi River. There's a limited amount of information we have on them, but some things are just understood. The technology they had available was very different. They didn't have heaters or insulated jackets or the layers to their homes that we do. They didn't even have a weather app that's sort of iffy sometimes but generally better than nothing. They had experience and knew how to survive for the most part, but it wasn't easy like it is for me. If they run out of food in their home they're in serious trouble if they're near the higher Mississippi, I just need to go to a cafeteria to eat or walk across the street to Walmart. I'm thankful times have changed, but sometimes I forget to recognize that though that isn't a struggle I know, it is one other people around me might.

A lot of the streets froze last night, when I went to eat lunch today the sidewalks around downtown were still pretty frozen. The best place to walk was right next to the buildings, the heat from inside had radiated out and melted a stripe of sidewalk next to them. For some people that may be the closest thing to warmth from shelter they can get. There's a lot I don't know about being homeless and the challenges they face but thinking about the challenges people in the U.S.'s past faced as if those only exist in the past would be ignorance. I hope I can find something to do to help the people facing challenges I don't know not only now but hopefully on a bigger scale in the future too.