![\"colin-sargent-final-xs\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Colin-Sargent-final-xs.jpg\")
\u201cC<\/span>old enough for you?\u201d Mainers I love are experts at cheerful annihilation. We cherish the hope of bracing for the coldest day of all and swooping out to the beach. \u201cHey, out there! Happy 2019!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nSometimes it\u2019s just us and the gulls on an insanely cold day like this, bright and shiny. It\u2019s essential to think of a warm song. I think you\u2019re hearing it, too. It\u2019s Ant\u00f4nio Carlos Jobim\u2019s lovely \u201cWave.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Which flashes us to the apocalyptic waves that visit our coast from far away in the winter. When they really get huge, breaking waves sound like breaking china.<\/span><\/p>\n Which in turn flashes me to Charles Lamb\u2019s sweet essay \u201cOld China.\u201d He\u2019s remembering the first set of china he and his wife had, mismatched and chipped. They were flat busted for money, but never so near and dear.<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s why our shared sensations of cold are so precious. Without knowing bone-chilling cold, how could we ever experience the pleasure of warm? It\u2019s not like I keep a pi\u00f1ata in our editorial office this time of year (see photo). I love their astonished eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n Nancy and I make a point of walking along Gooch\u2019s Beach on New Year\u2019s Day in the arctic sea smoke to check out the closed doors of the old bathhouse near the Kennebunk River. The enfilade of over 100 locked doors is an infinite recursion\u2014each hiding the promise of summer inside. What a sweet place to duck out of the wind for a kiss.<\/span><\/p>\n