43 Degrees of Separation

This morning coming out of the gym, the air seemed soft and warm, almost springlike. Indian summer was the phrase that crossed my mind, a phrase that is somehow inextricably mixed up in my mind with the politically incorrect 'Indian giver'- you know this summer will soon be snatched back.  The outside temperature reading on my car's dash said 43 degrees.  Meanwhile on NPR someone was saying that food, like love or money, becomes most important in its absence. 

One of the things I still retain from my years as a psychology major is that the human nervous system is designed in such a way that whatever we experience for a while becomes normal, and any change becomes abnormal.  The dramatic demonstration of this is that if you stick one hand in a bowl of hot water and one in a bowl of cold water and leave them there for a few minutes soon both hands will experience the temperature as neutral.  Today, 43 degrees feels warm.  In August 43 degrees would make it quite a chilly morning. 

Of course, food and temperature are not really like love or money.  Love and money are like the bowls of hot and cold water - their prescence or absence can hurt, but eventually become neutral.  However, although we can tolerate quite a range of caloric intake, in the not too long run, absence of food is deadly.  Same with temperatures - we can adjust to hot and cold water, but ice or steam will do us in.

Last night my daughter and I met with a group of people whose homes abut the woods behind my parents' house, woods that I grew up in.  Now my parents are gone, and my siblings are grown and have homes of their own.  It is time to sell this property.  We hoped to see the woods remain as they are.  We felt that the land in the abutter's back yards would be most valuable to them. 

We had a pleasant talk with these neighors, most of whom I had never met.  We agreed we loved the land and hoped it never changed.  However, we ended up being miles apart on what it was worth to see that happen.  Money is certainly the most relative of all values.  It will we interesting to see if we end at the same temperature.