"Geez, Madeline," I said to my colleague, giving her the side-eye while we stood from our seats as the meeting broke up, "Are you trying to conjure up snow again?" I pointed to her incongruous "Ugly Christmas Sweater" embroidered all over with yarny snowflakes.
"What? Oh," she said, looking down at herself, "Ha, yeah maybe, why not?"
Why not indeed, despite the fact that it was supposed to be officially Spring, and finally the weather had kind of accepted this state of things and let the sun come out, the winds ameliorated and the grass, yellow and pale and almost dead, finally showing.
"Well, when it snows," I said cryptically, "It's going to be your fault."
"You mean if it snows," She laughed. Because the forecasts all said rain. Of course. BECAUSE WE TRUST THE FORECAST.
And with that, we went our ways.
The next morning I open my front door, only to be met with a winter wonderland vista spread out before me, almost as if I were in a magical realism story opening a magical portal to a magical world that was totally...well, magical.
Because, it definitely was. Quiet. White. Soft. Even somehow, warm. Thick piles of flurries coming down as if it were a million buckets of feathers. Muting all sound, even your own footsteps were faint echoes (and I was wearing heels so that's saying something). I walked through that magical world in almost slow-motion, and it was almost as if I really was alone in that world (until I reached the main intersection that is).
It matched the huge snowballing feeling that was accumulating within me. A feeling I still am not able to articulate, the way it is perhaps with most loss.
The strangest thing is, that heavy wondrous storm lasted almost as long as my own walk. I fell asleep on the commute as I always do, and when I woke, everything was melting again. I almost wish that my own sense of loss could easily melt away, but things are not ever that easy, and I suspect that it is the one thing I will never actually lose. But even as the snow that had accumulated thickly as blankets melted, it went away revealing the most magnificent transformations: thick, lush, vibrant verdant green grass. Maybe in the same way that loss can only flourish with the agony of hope.
