Adults don't like winter as much as children. In the subconscious of a rational person, this is a difficult time of struggle for all living beings with the harsh challenges that nature throws. Cold, darkness, monochrome, illnesses, that's what keeps the consciousness of many adults in associations with winter, and the older we get, the deeper this negative association settles in our memory.
But let me, who live most of my life in constant winter, side by side with this harsh and really beautiful lady, remind those adults who have forgotten one of the most cozy memories in your childhood. I'm sure you have it, or something very similar.
I'm standing on the edge of the highway, what's left of it under tons of snow, held together by ice. December 15, 03:00 pm, the sun doesn't even try to be here, it’s a polar night. This is one of my favorite places to watch the Northern Lights. Not far from home and there is no light pollution. But even when Aurora doesn't illuminate the neighborhood, I always have something to look at and relax with my thoughts. The city stretches beneath my feet...
The city that has passed the stage of birth, maturity and is in decline. The city whose houses are destroyed under the onslaught of frost and wind. But there's something beautiful about this city, that puts a smile on my face. This means a lot, we Northerners rarely smile, because it makes our teeth freeze and hurt (serious).
I look at this city below and remember the past winters, the most severe of which were in my childhood. 20 years ago, even the saltwater bay froze completely.
I'm amazed how could we just walk and have fun outside in such a cold. You're dressed like an onion, but if don't move, you're still freezing. When you go outside, you immediately stop feeling your cheeks and nose, this is normal, get used to it quickly. Even faster you get used to breathing only through your nose, otherwise the air will be too cold for the lungs. But then I remember, no less joyful than playing with friends in this cold hell, was returning home.
Tired, sweating, having time to freeze again, you walk at a fast pace through the dark streets towards the house, stepping from the circles of lamplight into darkness and back into the light again. This strange winter silence surrounds you- you don't hear sounds in the distance, but you can clearly hear any sound nearby, your breathing, the crunch of each snowflake under the sole. Faster, faster home, looking at your feet, so as not to be afraid of the dark. Today is not the night when the northern lights show you the way with green flashes, today the stars shrink to the size of grains of sand in the frosty air.
But here, you look up and other stars are visible in front of you. There are not so many of them, they are not so bright and alluring, but no less beautiful than the heavenly lights. This is the light from the windows of houses, from dozens of apartments of faceless, gray houses. It's a warm, yellow light, there's nothing cozier in this world at this moment.
There is something magically attractive about them, like a lantern for a moth. Perhaps it is, because this light is so reminiscent of the light of a fire. You immediately feel warmer when you realize that people live there, in these spots of light, they are protected from the cold, they are surrounded by comfort and warmth.
And your window is there too...
Mom in your window, who is waiting for her wild tomboy to return to a warm house. She has already brewed hot tea and prepared a woolen blanket and dry clothes for you. Undressing you, she warms up your frozen and slightly numb hands. The unpleasant tingling quickly turns into a tolerable heat, and you feel like along with the warmth from your hands, from her hands, care and love spreads to your heart.
After a quick dinner, telling what a beautiful snowman you made today, and somehow taking a bath, you fly with the speed of a shooting star to your bed. Cold bed, but at the same time so desirable. Jumping under a heavy duvet, you curl up into a ball with just your nose sticking out a little. Family wish you good night, and you happily answer, chattering your teeth, trying to warm up again as soon as possible. Gradually, your little space under the blanket accumulates your warmth, and you don’t even notice how you straighten up and fall asleep as the happiest child in the world.
And so, I'm standing here on the outskirts of the city and looking down at hundreds of these cozy yellow lights in the houses. Every year this warm lamp light becomes less, it is replaced by a modern, white-bluish shade of led lamps. But for now, there are enough orange windows to remind me of my childhood and how the strongest cold give birth to the warmest memories.
Down there, hundreds of people are rushing home to their burning windows, where their relatives and friends are waiting for them, illuminating their lives like torches. My window is also somewhere there, and it’s time for me to go…