How do you feel about cold weather?
Gathano (Kikuyu) is the peak of the cold, misty and foggy season in July in the mountain region. There is something deeply personal about cold weather for me. Not because I have lived in snow-covered cities or spent winters in distant countries, but because cold feels like home.
I was born in the mountain regions of Kenya, near the slopes of Mount Kenya. If you know those regions, then you understand that life there is shaped by mist, drizzle, mud, and mornings that force you to tuck your hands into your pockets before the day fully begins. We grew up between long rains and short rains, between muddy paths and foggy evenings. And then there was July — the cold month everyone respected. Not hated. Respected.
So for me, cold weather is not just a temperature. It is memory. It reminds me of walking through wet roads as a child. Of jackets that were never fully dry during rainy seasons. Of grandparents living near the slopes of the Aberdare Range where mornings arrived wrapped in fog. It reminds me of places like Nanyuki, where later in life I would work at Laikipia Air Base in environments where the air itself felt sharp and alive.
Cold carries nostalgia. And maybe that is why I would choose cold climates over hot climates any day. Not because cold is easier. But because cold feels manageable.
There is something psychologically comforting about cold weather because the solution feels simple: generate warmth. Wear a sweater. Pull a duvet closer. Light a fire. Drink tea. Cuddle up over Prime & Netflix. Human beings seem to instinctively know how to respond to cold. Cold invites intentionality. It slows people down. It gathers families into living rooms. It creates atmosphere. Movies become better. Conversations become softer. Silence becomes beautiful.
Heat does the opposite to me. Heat feels invasive. It’s traumatising sometimes. When it is cold, you can always add another layer. But when it is unbearably hot, there is a point where you run out of solutions. You begin negotiating with discomfort itself. The body becomes restless. Sleep becomes difficult. Concentration weakens. You become irritable without even realizing it.
And scientifically, there is truth to some of that feeling. Extreme heat places strain on the body because it constantly forces the body to work to cool itself down through sweating and increased circulation. That process leads to dehydration, fatigue, dizziness, irritability, and mental exhaustion. Cold can also be dangerous, of course, but moderate cold often feels easier to regulate because humans can externally create insulation far more easily than we can create coolness in harsh heat.
Maybe that is also why some of my hardest memories are tied to hot places. Military training taught me that heat is not always poetic. Sometimes it is brutal. Think of places like Nachola, Kapedo, Marigat, Isiolo, & the other dry training terrains scattered across northern Kenya. Heat there was not the pleasant warmth people imagine on holiday postcards. It was relentless. The kind that dries your throat faster than water can satisfy it. The kind that makes metal burn your hands. The kind that turns exhaustion into confusion.
Even the water in hot regions always seemed different to me. Salty sometimes. Heavy with minerals. Warm before you even drank it. Nothing about it felt refreshing. Ah!!! Wajir! And the salty tea… smh. And maybe that is the strange thing about weather: we do not merely experience it physically. We experience it emotionally.
Cold reminds me of safety, childhood, reflection, jackets, fog, tea, stories, church mornings, and being close to home. Heat reminds me of survival. Perhaps that is why I still romanticize cold weather, even the parts I have never fully experienced. Snow, for instance, still lives in my imagination as something almost mythical. Every child raised on movies imagines snow as wonderland before they ever understand its harshness. Snow belongs to fantasy before it belongs to reality.
But even without snow, cold already gave me enough beauty. It gave me memory. And I think that is ultimately why people defend certain climates so passionately. We are rarely defending weather itself. We are defending the stories attached to it.
For some people, sunshine feels like freedom, holidays, sandy beaches… or, or, military trauma.
For me, cold feels like home.