The snow came last week. It didn’t last long before it began to melt, then suddenly the temperatures dropped significantly. This created a thick layer of ice all over everything. Hard packed crystals littered the roads, the trees, the plants and sidewalks.
I had never seen it like that before. Snow, yes, but this was pure ice. For the past week it has stayed pretty consistently at 18 degrees, and no matter where you stepped you met with a feeling of solidity. I walked across a patch of dirt and grass yesterday that was as hard as cement, and noticed that the ice had blossomed in the night to look like clear flowers that reflected the feeble light.
I stayed before our stove in the shelter of my warm home, trying to talk reason into the dog who was crying at the door. “It’s too cold out there,” I told her, “You don’t really need to go, right?”
She cried more.
I pulled my brother’s heavy coat from the rack by the door, and stole my mom’s slippers. Rory bounded down the 3 porch steps, and deer leaped onto the icy grass. Not a single cloud was in the sky, there was nothing protecting us from the thousands of pure, freezing stars. Rory spent five full minutes reveling in the crunch of ice beneath her paws, picking one foot up slowly, then quickly slamming it to the ground to hear the crackle, her mouth gaping wide in a ridiculously human looking grin. I finally ended her delight and dragged her back inside and began to thaw.
Every morning when I walk to my car on the way to work, I see the world – and all I want to do is write about it. I’ve rarely seen my surroundings so crystalline, so beautiful.
My mom took me to a diner the other day, and we chose a spot by the window so that we could watch the daily traffic as it made its way beneath the lingering town Christmas decorations. After working as a waitress for several months before taking the teaching position I have now, I have a significantly higher appreciation for the servers. As ours made her way slowly to the table, she greeted us with a superficial smile pasted on her tired face. Years of physical labor had taken a tell-tale toll on her body, and despite her un-advanced years, she looked far older than I knew her to be. I asked how her morning had been, and she mentioned that she had taken a bad fall on her way to work. I hadn’t ever realized that she walked every day, stood on her feet for 8 hours, then walked home. I looked out the window again at the ice blooming on the sidewalk. It was somewhere around 20 degrees, positively balmy compared to the days preceding it. Did she really walk in that? Though she was nearly double my age, I found myself wanting to mother her – wrap her twisted ankle and tuck her in with a hot cup of tea. I smiled at her, but knew it wouldn’t help her a bit. If only smiles were like piñatas – bursting with tangible goodness as soon as you cracked them.
More and more, I’m realizing I have so very much to be thankful for. Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember this, as I let tiny, stupid, unimportant things get me down. My alarm didn’t go off yesterday morning, causing my mom to walk into my room 40 minutes after I had planned to be up, saying “shouldn’t you be awake?”
I realized I’d lost my car keys as I rushed to get out the door – and I couldn’t even begin to fathom why they wouldn’t be in the drawer. Once I made it to school, I finally took a big enough breath to realize I felt as if I had a hangover – and the only thing that was missing was the pre-night cause. During 3’rd period, the fire alarm went off. I knew it hadn’t been on the agenda, which practice fire drills always are – so I grabbed my things and made my way down the 3 flights of stairs, looking out at the eerily deserted hallways, sniffing the air. Kids only have one mode – fast. They were all already outside. I grumbled to myself.
Just before I made the main entrance, a high school boy came caught me. “Miss Ray, I pulled the fire alarm” he said, a little grin beneath his mop of curly hair. Before I could respond, the main office erupted with people in full scolding mode, which he attempted to deflect with the excuse of “my backpack caught on the alarm as I leaned on the wall.”
I made my way down the final steps and saw that the rain had come in full force, and we stood unprotected for many minutes beneath the open skies as the big old school was checked. In my rush to get out the door that morning, I had forgotten my coat. I stood in silence as the rain dripped onto my eyelashes, listening to the high school girls beside me wondering aloud if the firemen the town would send would be cute. I watched the boys mutter in low voices that they hoped the fire department wouldn’t come – their eyes on the hair-flipping girls.
Nothing catastrophic happened that morning to put me in an irritated mood, and yet, that was how I felt – until I saw the woman at the diner. That night, I laid in bed for several hours before sleep finally claimed my sore body, trying to put everything into the proper perspective. I felt the fire in my leg, my foot a swollen dark lump beneath my covers. I kicked them off of my knee in an attempt to alleviate the pressure I felt there, and turned on my side. Thoughts swarmed through my head like bees, buzzing, stinging, leaving their mark. Would I always be like this? Would the pain abate? Would sleep ever come easily now that I was almost completely off of my medication? I have such a desire to be a partner in life, on an equal footing with those around me. Caring for a special needs child is a wonderful thing if you are prepared for it, but I didn’t want to be that “child” to the people in my own life. In some ways, it doesn’t change anything. In other ways, it feels like it changes everything. I have to keep putting things in perspective. I have to stay positive, or I’ll go crazy wondering about the “what if’s”, the “it might’s”. I tried, but my thoughts kept creeping to minor chords.
As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in a bedroom upstairs with the blinds wide open, watching the snow (which made its way back to us today) come down in huge white fluffs. It’s beginning to get dark, but my apple cinnamon candle is providing a soft glow on the dresser. A new week will begin soon. I hope it will be made up of only major chords.
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