i am from a place where it snows
Anna told me this evening that she isn't really able to remember any of the Januarys of her life. I find myself aligned in the same way. In my life, there are few January birthdays, few celebrations and every January has been marked by deeply cold, bone-chilling weather. The wind so strong it hurts with frozen eyelashes and fingers so cold you worry they're in the first stage of frostbite. The month is always marked by the idea of pain and not much else. My most significant memories have never taken place in January. I'd like it to hurry up.
When do we get to February? Some of my favourite people on this earth were born in February. Kindergarten valentines exchanges. Random sunny days. The phone call that changed my life. Family day. I think I've been very unfair to January. I've spent too long trying to jump right through it. What do you do when you catch yourself wishing your life away?
Do I scold myself? Do I allow myself to sit in a pit of sadness? How can I learn to live within the hellish cold, the dark, the night? One of the scariest aspects of this time of year is that I find myself wanting to do nothing. I come home from work and I want to go to bed. I don't want to look at a screen and I want to go to bed. I don't want to read or speak I said I want to go to bed. What do you do when you are so tired and your bones are full of ice?
I still follow the formula of "making myself feel better." I'm hardly a recluse. I see my friends and I make food and I exercise and I consume art and I produce writing and knitted items of clothing. Yet, something is off. It's almost as if I can see the true essence of the world, gray and cold, with all colour to be added myself.
I'm reminded of the poems written by elementary school students in Miami-Dade county, painted on the tops of buildings for airplane passengers to see upon arrival at the airport. One reads:
I am
from
a place
where it does
not snow
What is it like for you? To belong to a home and a place where there is sun, where the painful cold can't find you - not yet? I wonder if that third grade poet yearns for snow. For the wonder of a world illuminated, reflecting light off a white field, a white roof, a white street. The miracle of something falling from the sky, a commodity that becomes rarer as the planet warms. Maybe I've disproved my initial point that January never creates any memories. Maybe the best memory is the cold and the gray itself. It's unlikely to be around for the rest of my life. So I wish it all away, knowing the next one will be warmer.
No editing on this one. Written amongst friends in just over 15 minutes, with a prompt provided by Oblique Strategies, the brilliant card set by Brian Eno (yes, that one) and Peter Schmidt.
Happy Friday. Love and hugs, sam