Summary

Diski begins “A Feeling for Ice” by explaining that she has a particular affinity for the color white. She believes this affinity stems from the time she spent in a psychiatric hospital. She believes that white hospital sheets, for her, represented “a place of safety, a white oblivion” (61). Although she craved the white oblivion, this is not what she got at the hospital as each morning Nurse Winniki would come and rip off her covers and make her get out of bed. Diski wanted to cultivate the right conditions for being depressed, but the hospital and its staff fought against those conditions. In her quest for white in the present, Diski decides that Antarctica is what she needs. She wonders if it will be enough, if she will finally feel satisfied.

Diski reflects back on her childhood and describes her childhood...