Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

This Unending Winter...

The winter god lives in the wildest of skies, where no birds, planes, or supermen dare to fly. The fierce ice and the thick snow drifts experiment with voodoo, combining their powers as if to suck the joy out of earthlings.

Then, together with the chilling wind and tumbling snow, my kids walk in tracking piles of the white stuff beneath their boots. They complain that the pond is frozen, and they have given up on the snowman. So cold from their eyelashes dangle crystals of ice. So cold even the dog whines.

But we have hot soup inside, fire in the fireplace, and mother's love. And we all know daddy will be home soon, his ears and hands numb.

Don't shoot me, but I just lied to you...a bit.

I lied by writing the first three paragraphs above in the present tense, as if it is happening to me today, this year. I should have written those in past perfect because my kids are grown now, and we live in South Florida, where winters are so mild that, on a rare day or two, if the temperature falls under 40 F, Floridians wear everything they own in layers, thinking the poles shifted or it is Armageddon.

Truth is, those things in the beginning paragraphs did happen to me...a long time ago, when we lived in New York. So they are just twisted memories turned upside down and thrown forward in time. They are not perfect lies. But then, nothing I do is ever perfect.

My downfall is, I love grabbing words to twirl them around, just to beat thoughts into submission so they can play a few tricks. Then, after the tricks are done, I shake them up, so maybe the truth comes out. Just as, Albert Camus said: " Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object." Now, doesn't my referring to this quote show that, once upon a dinosaur time, I used to worship the existentialists?

And no, I am not gloating or acting according to the once-upon-a-time commercial's message: If you got it, flaunt it! No flaunting here, and I do feel for those who have suffered with the unending winter, this year.

I think, however, this year's savage winter in the country is an abnormal event, and it will pass soon enough. So, dear friends, believe me I hate to read in the news and see online and on TV all that you're suffering through, and I commiserate with you in spirit, while I keep writing every which way...and loose.