It’s snowing

It started snowing last night. I felt it when I woke up. The darkness outside was brighter, the silence quieter and my soul smiled. 

The love for snow is deeply embedded inside me, always has been. As a child, I sat on the window sill and looked outside, watched the snowflakes cover my world under a white blanket.

So many years later, I still sit by the window and look outside and I feel the same excitement. Snow is my friend, not my enemy, no matter where I am.

It seems each flake brings a treasured memory. Pictures of snowmen and igloos, the laughter during the snowball fights. The first crush when we were skiing, the kiss that turned my little world upside down. Rescue missions in the mountains, that not always had a happy ending.

Later on, two men will come by and shovel our driveways and the walkway to my workroom. They get paid with money and sandwiches, and we will talk for a while, as we always do. They love snow as much as I do -but not for the same reasons. They make money when it snows, money that helps them survive.

I can’t reach them by phone, and I don’t have to. They always show up; I can count on them. Many here on my street have hired them as well, but they are “my guys” -always will be.

The neighbors will come out, and they will complain about the weather and the amount of snow we got, and I will behave like an adult. I will nod and pretend to agree, while inside me the little girl will look around in amazement and clap her hands with joy.

Snow is part of who I am, always has been, always will be. It belongs to my life like the sun and the wind. I left the mountains in Italy a long time ago, but they never left me.