Break

Even if I have never experienced snow, I know it exists. But I cannot say that I recognize it. Not how it falls--Is it like rain? Or slower? Nor how it feels--Wet? Dry? Cold? How cold? And how does the air smell before and after snow? Is it fresh or heavy? Is there an electric scent of ozone, like just before a thunderstorm? And does it fall silently? Or in a hushed pattern like rain?

But I've known other things--rain and sun and cloud and wind. Such that when I feel the heat of the sun prickling my skin and making me sweat I can say, "No, this is not snow." When I feel a fine misty rain settle over my hair, or a driving rain pelting my umbrella like stones, I can say, "This is not snow." Or when clouds pass lazily overhead and the same breeze brushes my cheeks and ruffles the leaves; more so when heat rises almost visibly over concrete roads--"No, this isn't snow."

Then I realized that one could be aware of something but understand it not--and that one couldn't fathom how it really is, yet know definitely what it isn't.

But you, you were different. You gleefully took an axe to the bell jar of my preconceptions. And I realize that I've hidden from life behind opposites and antonyms--that I have defined my world by what isn't and my life by things I haven't experienced. And as I watched my carefully built walls shatter and pieces fall in slow motion, the fragments magically turned into snow, I stood bared--naked and quivering--cold, but very much alive.


For Dave. Thank you.