THE SHAPE OF THINGS

I am a winter baby. The season; a perfect balance of melancholy and light. Pure white and dirty grey. Time for thinking. Time for feeling. Time for laying in the bath for an hour and a half watching wax drip off a candlestick, only my nose hovering above the water, just high enough that I don't drown. Standing still in the woods while chunks of snow fall from trees, like white birds taking flight to the sky. Tenderly crunching along a frozen creek bed, listening for cracks that tell me, ‘perhaps the next one will go all the way through’. A skin of cream coating everything.
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What if I walked through the same space every day? Watched the leaves of the ferns unfurl, then cover the ground, then crisp, and dry, and die back, covered in snowfall. Branches develop juicy buds that turn into leaves that change colour, then shake in the wind and float to the ground.
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A search for water. Sprawled out on the creek bed in the dark, before the sun comes up. Plunging into the lake at midnight after a long drive home, before I finally make it to bed. Finding lakes in the sun and the rain and the frost. Salt water of the sea. A cold, chlorinated pool under the stars. Floating on a pool noodle in the sun, stretched out on a beach towel on the grass. In biting wind, stripped off my puffy jacket and threw it on again right after, still wet. Warmed up under blankets, wrapped in a hug, defrosted cold toes in wool socks. Pulled over at the side of the road, climbed over downed branches and waded into the black; toes squelching in the mud. Floated in the blue, looking back at rocks dripping with ice. The water like daggers along my collar bone. Brought the dog. Brought my lover. Brought my friends.

Most often, I only brought myself.