open love letter...

Cab Callaway was in the background. It almost sounded like a record. You could hear the hissing in that recording. I imagined a lively bar in New York City; an animated little place with flappers. Alcohol flowing like hair twirling in a shampoo commercial. It had been raining all day, drops like small meteors. The afternoon was filled with sirens. Rain always brought the accidents. I lived down the street from the hospital.  The air smelled like... something I could never quite describe. It was fresh and nostalgic. Rain always reminded me of Germany. I spent my youth and some of the best years of my life in Germany. Winter had that... je ne sais quoi. I was never able to find words to convey that feeling. It was like a mixture of excitement, some kind of impending something with that comfort feeling of a hot cup of chocolate by a fire in the Swiss Alps. I get that feeling every winter. When the clouds go grey, and obscure all sense of spring and autumn, something inside me ignites. Everything becomes better and more vibrant. Waking up isn’t a chore anymore, it’s more like a privilege, a gift from some northern god bestowing magic upon us mere mortals. When people complain about winter, I almost feel like they’re speaking ill of my child or my parents. It’s offensive.  I wish I could capture that smell in a bottle. I wish I could confine it in a snow globe. Release tiny blizzards when summer days become too much. When the sweltering heat and the blistering sun exhaust all my energy. The damn light, full of rich and valuable vitamin D is suffocating; the sun is so obscene. The heat insults my appetite. Summer and spring represent colour and outdoors. Ugh. Kill me know. Deliver me from sunshine country. Dark clouds and subfreezing temperatures are my friends. Winter is my eternal lover. The rain and snow my allies. I am indestructible in the winter. No one can get to me. Minus 20C is when I’m at my best. The peak of my propensity. Everything is ok when it’s cold. When it’s dark. ”I only smile in the dark, my only comfort is the night gone black ;I didn't accidentally tell you that I'm only happy when it rains...” summer and light are so constricting; over bearing. There’s an unimaginable freedom that my beloved winter brings with him. I feel safe and shielded. On cold stormy nights, I sit in the dark and listen to jazz. It transports me to another time. Another state of mind. I hold my breath and wait for my winter to come back and save me...