It's well into March and I'm so excited about Spring! But.... this late-winter/early-spring transitional time can be a bit anxiety producing for me. I can never figure out what to wear! No matter what I decide on I always seem to get it wrong. Either I overdress or underdress. Not only that but it always seems to spring up on me and catch me unawares. I've never been the type to buy warm weather clothes when it's still cold out, or have them on hand if I hear the report of warmer weather on the way, (or really plan in advance for anything, despite one of my father's many famous iterations, "proper prior planning prevents poor performance!") . So I'm rummaging through the closet usually when I don't have time to be pulling all of my summer clothes out of storage, trying to make an outfit out of some kind of summer dress/winter legging fusion, while not being able to remember what 55 degrees feels like and either wearing a coat I was wearing when it was 25, or a light sweater that the wind goes right through, and meanwhile making the place look like it was ransacked by thieves after changing my clothes 17 times. Either way, I end up getting chilled because I got all sweaty from over dressing, or chilled because I dressed like an idiot getting a little too prematurely excited for Summer. And as far as the fashion goes, it's a bit clunky for a few weeks. It's a transitional season, change is tough, and I forget what warm weather is like. I absolutely love summer wear, but I find it weird to transition to. Fall is a bit tricky too, but it never seems as awkward. Maybe it's because at first you just start by throwing something over what you've already been wearing and it organically develops from there. But this past week it felt like suddenly the clothes I'd been use to wearing were completely inappropriate and I couldn't figure out what to substitute them with. Maybe last year's clothes aren't speaking to me anymore. And let's not even talk about the state of the coat rack. I think every coat, hoodie and shawl I own has been in circulation this week.If you're as sensitive to external temperatures as I am, it can become so distressing. I get hot really easily and cold really easily, and can get really uncomfortable if I don't get it right . I try to dress responsibly for health reasons too. In the theory of pathogenesis in Chinese medicine, "wind cold invasion" comes in through the back of the neck and exposes the body to illness if the pores are open (i.e. sweating). That's why so many people get sick this time of year. The temperature fluctuates, we're either too exposed or our pores are open from sweating and the cold wind hits us in the back of the neck and we get stiff there and then our defenses slightly weakened so opportunistic viruses or bacteria get the better of us and the next thing you know we have a little cold.
The channels of the legs are vulnerable too and are especially important for women to keep covered and warm. Exposed ankles allow the cold to enter the channels at a vulnerable area and it can travel up the leg channels, predisposing us to menstrual cramps and other "cold" conditions of the uterus and reproductive system. Chinese medicine is incredibly concerned with "cold" as a pathogenic factor. When you hear acupuncturist speak about it it can sound a little esoteric, metaphorical and odd at first, but the more you understand it, the more you see how literal it really is. Stick your hand in a bucket of ice water for a few minutes and it eventually starts to hurt and you can't really bend you fingers. That cold is penetrating the tissue and slowing things down. We are all made of fluid and the fluid of the body and the blood congeals in the cold and the flow of blood and fluids slow down. Modern medicine uses this technique to achieve certain effects, and I'm sure the concept is not foreign to most people. Everyone knows someone who's joint pain, or arthritis gets worse in the cold weather. In the West we don't even give it a thought, we drink ice water all year round and ice joints that don't need icing. Actually it ends up stagnating the channels and causes fluid accumulation, impairing joint mobility to make things stiff and achy. Often times I'll find people who have chronic knee pain, for example, and have knees that are literally cold to the touch. So obviously the blood flow to the area is impeded, and if the blood flow to that area is impeded, chances are there's another area that's not getting adequate supply of blood and fluid as well, causing another accumulation of cold. This is why we say it can travel up through the channels. Every part of our body is connected. Literally. We have networks of fasica that traverse our entire body and wrap around muscle bundles and fibers and this network extends all the way to the infrastructure of the cell. The flow of interstitial fluid through these spaces is how things like "cold" can effect another part of the body. Or an otherwise impinged area like an adhesion causing tendonitis at the attachment site at the joint (perhaps leading to inflammation, or "heat").Fortunately we can rest assured that soon, the temperatures will hold a little more steady and figuring out what to wear won't require so much consideration. Our outfits will easily satisfy all the requirements of fashion and function.
