First Snow

Through my reflection in the window I could see the snow. It danced and swirled from the invisible heavens like a sea of tiny falling stars, bright in the pool of yellow light from the street lamp. I ran through the silent, creaking house, brushing light switches with my deft fingers as I raced down stairs and through hallways. The back door groaned open onto the whisper of softly falling flakes, delicate and fragile in their freshness. For the first time since April, my toes were cold against the wood. My outstretched palm was tickled by the first snow of the year, so barely snow that it vanished as it met my pulled-down sleeve, to be replaced by speedily vanishing water droplets that hesitated in my hair and on my sweatshirt. A finger dragged through the small collection of flakes on the stairs was instantly cold and wet, but left a satisfying trail through the whiteness. The cold night air filled my lungs and my heart with the kind of ecstatic joy that comes with new things, or things remembered, like the smell of the basement and of the opening box of hats and mittens. With the snow came memories of steep mountains and summer mornings on top of the world and castles from when I was small. Snow is winter and summer at the same time, it’s being stuck at home and being absolutely free under the Colorado sun, being warm and freezing simultaneously. It’s everything wonderful and beautiful and I want to hold that moment, the moment I stepped outside in my bare feet and extended my hands towards the bulky gray sky, I want to hold that forever, like the flakes I caught in my palms, but, like the fragile snowflakes, that memory too will vanish, and I will be forced to make new ones. New ones in the snow, to be remembered next year as I run outside and lift my eyes towards the wintry air, a year older, but no less thrilled.