My Wife Just Wants to Be Warm

Lala and I are starting to get a little bit more freaked out about this planned move to New Zealand.

Last night we sat at the dinner table and looked at each other with very big eyes.

“I’m just nervous,” she said.

“Me too.” I’m nervous about so many things, number one being that we’ll regret going so far away from our loved ones. “What are you nervous about?”

She said, “That I’m going to be cold.”

This is something we’ve been mildly squabbling about for months. Legend has it that Kiwis don’t know and don’t care what insulation is in houses. This actually explains SO MUCH about the house where I lived during high school and undergrad, the house where my dad still lives. It has no heat except for the fireplace in the living room. Yes, it’s California. And yes, it still freezes in the winter. My mom never tripped on it, and therefore, we really didn’t, either. We just bundled up and spent a lot of time reading under the covers.

Lala and I recently watched a home improvement show set in New Zealand called Creative Living, and the house they restored had no insulation at all. As in, they ripped out the drywall, and the beams behind it were naked and shivering.

Me, I like a bit of a draft. I like it when my feet are cold. When I sleep, I like the room to be as cold as humanly possible, and I still keep the fan directed right at me, year-round.

I’m also of the belief that being cold is empirically better than being hot. After all, you can always put on a sweater. You can always do some jumping jacks to move the blood if you’ve been sitting a while. You can always put on some wool socks that your wife made you out of your collection of many wool socks that your wife has made you.

So I can admit that I haven’t been as receptive to Lala’s worry as I could have been. It’s a human thing to do, to assume that everyone else feels approximately the same way that you do. If they don’t, there must be something wrong with them, because it certainly couldn’t be you. Very honestly, this is something I’ve been working on a lot in the last few years. Humans are selfish beings, and I don’t begrudge them that. We’re all trying to avoid suffering and achieve equanimity, if not outright happiness.

But when you finally realize that your wife hasn’t just been grumbling but is actually frightened — when you realize that, it’s time to make a change. When she was a kid, her mom used to find her sleeping on top of the heat vent. She needs heat just the same I need coolth (which is so a word).

So for the last three days, I’ve been practicing. I’ve been heating the house way past what I’m comfortable with. I spend most of my waking hours in my office, and if I close my door and cover the heating vent with a collection of blankets and pillows, I can keep my office cool as the side of a refrigerator while the rest of the house shimmers like a desert road in the sun.

Lala, when she realized the house was finally warm enough for her, admitted she thought I might be being passive-aggressive. I will point out I am not above being this on a bad day. But in this case, I wasn’t. I really want to reassure her.

So last night as we talked again about her fear of being cold, I said, very seriously, “We will not let that happen. If we have to buy three space heaters and sit you in the middle of them for the whole of winter, we’ll do that. Haven’t you noticed how I’ve been keeping you warm lately?”

She exclaimed, “You’ve been doing that for one day!”

“Two days,” I corrected her.

She grimaced.

Today makes three days.

Here’s the thing, we both want to go to New Zealand. We both think it’s a good idea. So many people want to go, but we’re actually able to.

And the fears we are feeling are big and real, and what I have to remember is every time I downplay one of her fears, I’m not listening to the person I choose to spend my life with, not listening to the person I’m in love with. And that’s not okay.

So!

I now plunge into a new winter in Oakland, where I will wear a tank top and shorts inside the main part of the house in order to reassure Lala that she never has to be cold again.

We won’t rent a house in New Zealand until we get them to demonstrate the heat pump to us, whatever a heat pump is. We’ve googled, and we still have no clue. It certainly sounds colder than the forced heat we have. A heat pump sounds like the suggestion of heat. Our forced heat is just that — a wild surge of hot air that has similarities to what I’m full of sometimes.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep the desk fan pointed right at me. As usual.