Superpowers

Wind buffets the house. Tree limbs rattle outside the windows, snow swirls in great gusts, and the chimney sounds like a coke bottle when you blow air over its opening. Snow glitters in the porch light before sunrise, and the world outside is bright in the diffuse moonlight.

Today’s Bloganuary prompt is “What is a superpower you’d love to have?” We didn’t lose power in the winter storm, and I’m safe and warm inside. Some of the places I most want to visit, or maybe even live one day, are icy cold. But the cold keeps me from going outside despite how beautiful and magical the world is when it’s covered in snow. It glitters.

So right now, as I sit in my slippers and PJs and think about living in Maine, and surfing in winter, and the wildness and sparse human population of extreme northern and southern latitudes, being impervious to cold sounds pretty great.

I think that’s a circumstantial wish, though. If it were summer right now, and the garden were in bloom, and I were outside in the sunshine and colorful flowers, I don’t think I’d care about being resistant to cold.

Flight would be a pretty cool superpower. I’m short, for one thing. Flight would let me get up above the crowds, jump off of mountains, soar over natural wonders for a full, unobstructed view, reach the jar in the top back of the cupboard without having to climb on a chair.

Breathing underwater would be awesome, too. I’d love to explore the ocean without the encumberance of SCUBA gear. And if I could breath underwater and be impervious to cold, I could explore the kelp forests and see the giant marine invertebrates of the Pacific Northwest.

None of those superpowers really help other people though. Is that a necessity of a superpower? If I were to have a superpower intended to help make the world a better place, I’d like to be able to help people understand one another and be kind despite our differences.

That sounds like a lot of work, though, so maybe I’ll just stick to cold-imperviousness, flight, and sea lungs.