Dita Parker

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Cold song

I'd have no problem camping down at the top of the world if all winters were like this one has been. The snow lights up the scenery and makes you forget about the short days and seemingly endless nights. I look outside and get the impression of living inside a snow globe. It's hard to stay inside. We can't get enough of the outdoors. Short of biathlon and ski jumping, we've soon gone through the Winter Olympics program. The kids are ecstatic. Hubby and I are trying to keep up and loving every minute.

We've had some fifteen inches of snow to play and deal with, and being the able-bodied and efficient beings they are, Scandinavians work wintry wonders on a daily basis. Nothing stops functioning. School's never out. Traffic may be slower or delayed but never clogged. The roads are ploughed at dawn and off we go. After we've ploughed the driveway and taken care of the Mt. Everest the city has mounted on the sidewalk by kindly having the streets ploughed at dawn.

And last night...last night it rained diamonds. I took a late night walk to soak it up in silence. Something prickled my cheeks. It wasn't snow, or rain. Crystallization, right before my eyes. It makes the trees look more like props than nature, frost coating everything to create a marshmallow world. And against the street lamp lights, against the luminous background, it looked as if diamonds danced on air. Nothing fell out of sky. I was walking through crystal walls, crystals hanging in midair. 

I don't know how long I stood there or how much of a village fool I looked staring into seeming nothingness. To be filled with a sense of wonder... I wish you frequent opportunities. May you never lose that gift. 

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