COME READY
Winter came ready this year, snow as far as you could see, white like the world I left.
Its feathery assault was amusing and playful, arriving as it did on a Friday night. Nowhere to be early Saturday morning, the powder swam thick like soup, wrapped around my ankles as I made my way to the post office.
Everyone is a new friend after I’ve spent so much time alone. No one minds having their picture taken now that the world is functionally monochromatic. But it doesn’t last, and that’s what really kicked me. Two weeks later and its spring already.
I was hunkering down, I was getting ready to hold tight for the long months and longer nights. The winter that reaches deep and lulls you in, the cold that reddens your thighs and squeaks when you walk on it.
The drifts of snow comfort me, they are the edges of memories, they are the creases in my paper thin sense of home, they are the folds that form me into a crane.
The crisp cold memories of a clear and calm night - here on a weekend walk. The semblance of belonging both lost and found, a bundle of sad starts and even sadder endings, always looking for a fresh beginning.
A clean slate set.
