is it winter yet?

The sky is white today.

You know this color white:
It's the color of a sky heavy with condensation,
but without the purple and blue tones that signify
a spring drizzle, or
a summer rainstorm.
It's the kind of white that often
Serves as a backdrop on holiday greeting cards,
Reminding us of
The Good Old Days,
When we didn't know about global warming,
And the white purity of snow was a testament to
The purity of suburbia --
One Mom and one Dad,
A Son and a Daughter
All happily existing in a cozy Christian household,
Where choruses of "Gee Whiz" and "Honey, I'm home,"
Shone through the haze of repression.

The Good Old Days still exist in memory, of course, as a
Fantastic Ideal that, in the winter time, propels most of us to
Cautiously peek out the window when the sky is white,
As it is today, so that we can
Subconsciously wish for that greeting card image, so that we can
Hope for a reappearance of the perfection of the lives we "remember"
which smell like oven-fresh chocolate chip cookies
And radiate fireplace warmth
From the Good Old Days that might never have been.

We don't have holiday seasons like that anymore.
The purity of snow melts under the pressure of
Global warming and
Pollution, and
A white Christmas
(like those we remember)
Is easily tainted for those who believe in Purity
Today, by
Diversity and all Deviations, no matter how
Minute they may seem to the rest of
Us.

The rest of us take change in stride.
We forget about Red and Green and a
Baby with wise Men, while
January and February blow in and remind us of
The true meaning of Winter
On days like Today.
Today,
The sky is heavy with the reminder of snow, and
Instead of Christmas,
Reflected in the whiteness is myself
In elementary school,
And I am filled with the excitement of an oncoming
Snow Day.

I am laying in the snow,
Layers of water-resistant, insulating materials
Guarding my fragile skin from the freezing
Ground and ice beneath me.
I am lying Here in the snow,
Or Here, even
After making a snow angel, or
After running away from a
Particularly well-aimed snowball, or
After an exhilarating slide
Down a slick slope,
Hearing and feeling
My heart
Pumping fast,
Aware of the
Expansion and
Deflation of my
Belly
With every passing breath.

I am lying here forever
With no pause for concern
About why it is particularly cold this year
Or why the snow will melt tomorrow
In a day that feels like Spring,
When bulbs planted a few months ago begin to shoot up
Only to freeze a few days later
As the temperature of the air
Swings hard and fast like a pendulum,
Propelled back and forth to extremes
As we tinker with the farthest reaches of creation.
I lie on the cold blanket, unthinking the cycles of nature and
My place in the world; grateful instead simply for the snow,
For how it means that I don't have to give that
Oral Presentation in class today, and how
I get to skip a day of Gym this week.
Mmm, I breathe,
This is good.

Today parades my favorite color white. It is
The color of Hope
The color of Relief
The color of Bliss.

***

How I long sometimes for those ignorant days and
Hungrily instead
Sit by my double-paned window, waiting for the pendulum
To swing back from the oncoming spring, waiting for the
First specks of whiteness to fall from the sky, that will
Shorten the distance between floor and ceiling,
As I drink liquid warmth
And pretend
That the only thing
Which separates
Me
And the
Feeling of uninhibited
Joyfulness,
Free from anxiety
And all the worldly pressures
Of Oral Presentations
Of a gym class of awkwardly confident adolescents
Of how it is to be an almost-adult
In the midst of a quarter-life crisis,
Is a few ice crystals
And a pair of snow pants.