Here’s my question, Bentley: what does it mean to love only in the winter, when all is either asleep or dead, when the ground divides, the asphalt disappears in spheres, in black holes. The same as. What I can’t explain. This genderlessness of winter. The wool, the thick coats, the hats. Who doesn’t become invisible. Who isn’t suddenly approachable. A wallet left alone in the snow. A girl. A boy. One and the same. I love everyone, the rest of me so numb there’s nothing else to feel. The empty streets, the wallet that had fallen out of my pocket, waiting on my return. I love each thief, stuck inside, beside a radiator, a space heater, a cup of cocoa.I love a friend here, a friend there, trying to get out of bed in the mornings, to see as much daylight as possible, to forget about their uncertain futures. I love that I’m not the only one. And I love the digital voice I wake up to in the mornings, fall asleep to at night, love the person it belongs to. I can admit it. But it’s only possible when I can’t over think it, when there’s nothing else to think about but the layers of clothing needed, the glove covering the hand, a scarf protecting the lungs. When it snows horizontally and everything in the world disappears and equalizes and I can’t step outside for days. When the streets shimmer and windows turn to ice. When the malls and the theaters and the universities shut down and the temperatures drop below zero and everyone is like me: desensitized. This heart opens. It’s easier in the winter, Bentley.
Even right now, at this moment: the neighbor’s elderly cat screaming at the door, the distance, the dreams, the dead, even myself. Right now, it’s true. And how much easier it is, Bentley, when it’s too cold to stand below the icicles and wait for one to fall to pierce the chest.
9 comments:
Frecking snow blog.
Immediacty is the name of the game. Love it. Love the Lull and the Icicle. So many factors may go unseen or unnoticed, but most of them were captured. (The genderless of winter, the forgetfulness, ect.) Enjoyable read.
Winter is my favorite season so reading this essay was very interesting. What I like most about this blog is that at first their is a description of the lost of emotional perception, "and everyone is like me: disensitized." The ending is good also as it gives the biggest symbol of feeling, pain. "...
{W}hen it's too cold to stand below the icicles and wait for one to pierce my chest."
I find it amazing that matter is constantly changing because of how it is affected by the world around it. A week ago snow was whirling around my house. It had collected in spots three sometimes three feet high. Each flake nearly weightless but all together was heavy enough to bow the wooden handle of my snow shovel like a bored kid in math class trying to make his pencil rubber.
Now, the snow has decided to commit suicide on my roof and burn itself into water. Just think, that weightless snowflake melted into a drop of water is now much heavier, but when the water freezes, it does not become a snowflake again…it’s ice. That ice is even far heavier. In fact, it’s so heavy it’s causing the roof of my house to bend and cry itself into my closet. The ice is again dying into water to be laid to rest in a casket that is the biggest pot I can find in the kitchen.
Suicidal snow is just an inconvenience. I’m just pissed about the wet clothes in my closet.
I don't like the winter, or the cold to be more precise. In the beginning of the essay I agreed with the writer. "The wool, the thick coats, the hats. Who doesn't become invisible." It's so true. Almost everyone on the sidewalks walks with their heads down against the wind and blistering cold. You lose your identity, you just become numb to your surroundings. Just another face in the crowd.
"To love only in the winter, when all is either asleep or dead, when the ground divides, the asphalt disappears in spheres, in black holes"... is a morbid true love. It is to love when raw emotion is laid out on the cutting board, despite a frozen heart, and amidst the falling icles. However the pure joy of the first white snowfall is a simply beautiful reason to love.
Hearts open in the winter because everything is in solitude. The trees have been stripped of their leaves. The flowers have been covered under inches of snow. Even snowflakes fall alone. There is no color, only black and white an shades of gray. The heart looks for color, it searches out another heart to bide its time with.
I love the use of the name Bentley here. We don't know this person, but I still feel like he is a major character in this blog. We understand that Bentley is more than likely the person he is talking about love to. Immediacy really pushes this essay along.
Interesting article, but I find it a little biting and cynical. Maybe the winter will do that to a person
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