Snow

All I need is snow. You know, sometimes you happen to think of something, and all of a sudden an avalanche of thoughts and feelings overcomes you in an instant. It’s like opening a closet door by mistake and having the things inside suddenly spill out on you. And I just thought of snow. Ahh! I want to wake up one morning and find the room extraordinarily bright and quiet. There is something unmistakable about that first seconds of the morning when the realization of what is outside hits you.  I want to jump out of the bed, and walk across the room barefoot, and put my hands on the cold window-sill, and feel the cold reaching my face through the glass, and see everything outside covered with snow, with wonderful white fluffy new snow. I want to stand there and squint at the bright reflection of the light; I want to stand there and smile, and feel the cold floor under my feet, and hear my heart beat in my chest, and know that all was reborn last night and the city is brand new once again. I want to run into the kitchen and say “first snow!” to my mom, like I used to do every year for so many years before. I want to see her smile. I want to stand in the kitchen in front of the window and hold a mug of hot tea in my hands and look outside at the snowy street. I want to go out and feel the cold air prickling my cheeks and getting under my collar, tickling my neck. I want to hear the squeak of the snow under my boots and see the bright blue sky above. I want to swipe some snow from the roof of a car and squeeze it and feel it melt in my bare hand, making it cold and red and wet. I want to see my breath in the air. And then I want to be inside, setting up the Christmas tree, while big blue snowflakes pass my window. I want to hear the front door close and hear my dad come home into the warm, to hear the puffing and stomping of his feet filling the hallway. I want to unwrap the decorations and take them out of their year-old dusty boxes which I have not seen for so long, for so long. I want to smell the pine needles in the air, I want to prick my fingers while hanging the shiny balls on the bows. I want to smell the dinner cooking in the kitchen. I want to remember the story behind each decoration as we unwrap them. I want to see my mom looking at the one I made in third grade, the one I won in a contest, the one I got from a classmate - those decorations, more dear to her than to me. And I want to curl up in an armchair, under the warmth of a floor lamp, reading a book, while the tree is making the room feel suddenly new and strange and festive. I want to wait till the night has fallen and the windows are dark and I want to call my parents in the room and turn off the room lights and turn on the tree lights. And then I want to freeze that moment when there is silence for a second  –  just for a second – when the soft light of the tree in the corner is the only thing in the world that you see and that matters. I want to remember this moment again, the silence and the semi-dark room, before I turn the lights back on. 

Snow...