Snow Day
Even if walking about in the city after it’s snowed is a dirty, slushy, wet, and disgusting slog, there’s something magical about the first real snowfall of the season.
A snowy day in New Jersey.
There’s something lovely about a world blanketed in white, hushed and quiet. I always think of snowfall as silent even when it’s not, even when little tinkling bits of ice gather musically on the windowpanes. I watched the sun rise over the city as I left a warm, sleepy Bear behind in New Jersey, the sky a brilliant rosy-orange fading into a muted lavender-pink. It’s the shortest day of the year and soon I can celebrate the return of the sun, but reflected in my mind’s eye are scenes of play: me dressed as Lyra Belacqua with a faux fur-lined hood, me with a daemon White-Harp tucked in my coat, stealing piggy back rides from a Bear in the snow–my Iorek Byrnison, my Will Parry.
My Teddy Bear is a Bear of few words and little sentimentality. His is an ordered existence of biological processes, electrical synapses, and physio-chemical reactions–he sees the universe in such rational, logical ways. For him there is beauty in simplicity and right answers: no messy endings, no interpretations. It just is. I, on the other hand, seem to exist in a twilight, where light and dark bleed into murky shades of grey. I just know. I have been called complex, mysterious, unknowable, but it is only because I don’t comprehend the world so clearly. At heart, Bear is an unsubtle creature, as uncomplicated and straightforward as an honest day’s work. He keeps me grounded, does Bear, a mooring for my flighty and flitterigibbet self.
He is a Bear of few words and little sentimentality, so to speak of emotions is rare. Words are tricky, you see, and a complicated person can navigate the tangled web of meanings. He prefers to be direct but how can you be direct with the words “I love you” when you can love a food as equally as a person? I sit with my head in his lap as he strokes my hair, spending an afternoon buried by snow watching football and eating delivery pizza.
“Love you,” I say. He squishes me twice, a subconscious mirroring of my rhythmic declaration. Love. You.
Later, when I am swaddled by comfort and blankets and White-Harp and his arms, listening to the wind blow off the gables of the house, I am filled with the most inarticulate tenderness. Words are tricky, I think, and I snuggle against his shoulder, choked by my own emotions, unable to speak. Our fingers are entwined as we fall asleep.
I squeeze my fingers into a fist two times. Love you.
He hugs me closer for two heartbeats. Love you too.
“His is an ordered existence of biological processes, electrical synapses, and physio-chemical reactions–he sees the universe in such rational, logical ways. For him there is beauty in simplicity and right answers: no messy endings, no interpretations. It just is. I, on the other hand, seem to exist in a twilight, where light and dark bleed into murky shades of grey. I just know. I have been called complex, mysterious, unknowable, but it is only because I don’t comprehend the world so clearly.”
Sounds exactly like me and Andy. I wonder if us “flighty and flitterigibbet” people look for more rational, black-and-white partners like Bear and Andy to keep us grounded. Or if it’s just a natural attraction of opposites.
I like your schmoopiness, hehehe. :)
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I live in a sea of grey ambivalence–it helps me to see multiple sides of a situation, sure, but ask me to choose what to make for dinner or what movie to see, and I spend the next seven deciding what’s the best option. It’s those bright black and white logical buggers that look so attractive…bravo to you for finding one! :)
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Beautiful! And thank you for sharing the fabulous time-lapse video.
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