Member-only story
Weather in the Hands
Syracuse, NY is cold. Not right now, but in general. It is known as one of the coldest or the snowiest places in the state. In my first winter here in 2017/18, I remember leaving the house without a scarf or hand gloves was excruciatingly painful. I used to ride my bike everywhere when I first moved here. It wasn’t actually my bike; a friend I met here lent it to me for a while. Riding a bike in the Fall, easy peasy. Riding a bike in the winter is a different beast. As with everything, it needs prep before you even start. One time, it was not as cold when I left my house with the bike, so I forgot my hand gloves. While I was outside, it got really cold and started snowing. But I can’t leave my bike on campus, and I’ve never done the carrying-your-bike-on-the-bus thing, so I thought, eh, I would just ride my bike; it won't be that long. It was probably a 10–15 minute ride home, but as soon as I got to my house to take my keys out, my fingers couldn’t move. My hand and fingers had almost frozen, taking the shape of my hand holding my bike handles. I freaked out a little bit, and then by the grace of God, I was able to use my keys and enter the house. But then the heat in the house was shockingly different from the cold outside, so my hands, squared off as if holding handles, were burning under my skin now. I thought fire was gonna come out of my skin. And then I stopped everything and just sat, waiting for my hands to return to normal temperature and shape. Afterward, I was able to Google it and found out it was frostbite—but this was a milder case, as I saw in Google images that this condition can be worse, down to literally burned skin.
