Winter

Counter top. Kitchen table. Faded wallpaper. Peeled linoleum, browning and curled with age. My everything bathed in a dull flicker of yellow light. There is a time in your life when your entire being and existence, everything that was or will be, exists in the now. You’re small, everything else is big. Your sight is your truth. The kitchen floor you’re sitting on is your entire world. All you know. The world beyond doesn’t exist, not yet. We lose that total immersion when our bodies stretch, pulling up and out, past the kitchen counter, through awkward lengths and fumbling feet. I remember the first night I became fully aware of an existence beyond that dingy brown house.

A crisp layer of white stood stark in the cloaked darkness of winter. Fat snowflakes swam lazily from heavy cloud cover, and when you stepped outside you could see the words bubbling from your lips into a haze that melted away as soon as it was there. There were perplexities I didn’t understand hidden in the deepness of winters I can scarcely remember. Where did the cold come from, what was the white rain that shook itself off the clouds? Why, when it fell, did it swallow my legs beneath me, but only go up to my mother’s knees? This was the last winter I would be able to count my age on one hand, and I meant to enjoy it. I tackled the snow with the ferocity and determination only a child can muster; Stomping, crunching, burrowing, digging, throwing, I swept through the tiny back yard in a torrent of destruction. My mother would call me in after a long day of red fingers and dripping mittens.

One evening though, after she had warmed and dried me, made my belly full, I wanted more. I begged, my bright golden eyes blinking widely in front of her. When no progress was made, they welled with tears that spilled over, down my round cheeks. I screamed, she rolled her eyes, this wasn’t fair. I needed to be out in the snow. I would die if I didn't feel it crunching under my bright blue boots. I waited until she had put me into bed. My ear pressed against the door, I detected nothing. I pushed my way through the house, and slipped my little legs into their boots, clumsily pulled my jacket on, and I was out the door. The fresh night air assaulted my face, the snow that had earlier been delicately drifting from the clouds whipped through my hair, swirling violently in the black sky. Trees abandoned their stagnancy, and danced a wicked dance: cracking, swaying, splintering, tumbling. I shivered, wanting to retreat back to my bed—but determination pulled me forward. The snow swallowed me, as I made my way further from the house, wrapping its arms around me, spinning me, the wind pulling my limbs out. I span, the ice got in my eyes. I cried out, but the cold suppressed the sound, muffling my tiny voice. I was shaking, fragile. I spun around to run back inside, but it was gone— the house. I faced a wall of white flecks and darkness, no matter where I looked.

The night howled in discontent and hunger, ripping against my cheeks, and gnawing at my fingers. I didn't have my gloves. I ran, pumping my numb legs forwards, winter swallowed me whole. Blood pumped fast and hot— skin thick and clammy. Exhaustion coursed through me, lungs drinking in the ice and burning. Snow rippled all around me, and strange fluid trees reached and leaned above my head. With a pounding heart and tears streaming into the ice on my flesh, I curled under a tree, holding to the chilled trunk. My throat burned, and my toes were on fire, every limb racked with frozen flame, feeding on my fear. I choked on my sobs, afraid, cold, alone. I stared into the black abyss of night, ready to succumb to the sleep that was lilting a delicate and tempting tune in my ears, when I saw it—a light. Bobbing in the blackness, whispering on the wind, I heard my name; softly at first, then louder. It was a frantic call, full of desperation and fear. The light spun and fell on me, and my mother rushed towards my meager shelter, wrapping me in her warmth and pulling me from the snow. She was crying, and yelling, and then crying more. Before I knew it, we were home; the dull flicker of the yellow lights, the peeled linoleum, and the counters that stretched higher than I. A sense of warmth and security flushed through me, and I think that is the moment in my life when I began to recognize the concept of home. The concept of a world beyond it. I was home now. A place where I was safe and warm, no matter what else was in the world, where I went or what happened; I could always come back here. I snuggled deeper into my mother’s arms, while she sang to me, and drifted into an easy slumber.