Although it was freezing outside, I had on my favourite overcoat and boots. A steaming, steady brew of my favourite tea kept me warm when I was inside, and my satin shawl and long hair danced in accord with the northern winds. The long winter had been a beautifully orchestrated sonata, and I had obediently hummed along.
“It is winter, a time to escape into fantasy, a time to drown in nostalgia,” I had said to myself then, but this is no longer how I choose to remember what used to be my favourite season at the time. I remember being all wrapped up in warm fuzzies one morning and fancying myself a Yeti from the snowy Himalayas.
I could sense the winds were beginning to grow less cold. Soon spring would come and take my winter wonderland away from me. So I wanted to the make the best out of what remained of the frosty season. And what better a way to do so than enjoy a long, morning walk and get some ice cream?
I walked past my street noticing with delight that I was not the lone person in an overcoat. Bundles of clothing and warm coats and sweaters were still wrapped over half of the people I saw around me.
I watched with a sense of forlornness as some ladies fussed over the marked rise in temperature. “We shouldn’t have worn such bulky clothes today,” I heard them say to each other as all of them took of their coats by way of reaching an agreement.
Those fashionable ladies had given in to the temptations of spring, but I would never do so. Adamant in my attempt to not let go of winter, I headed along, more determined than before, to cool myself off with some ice cream. There was no way I would take my coat off, not so soon.
“I am not like the others,” I figured. “They’re already shedding their skins, ready to welcome the warm rays of spring.” I felt myself rather like a lone adventurer. While those all around me were choosing to moult with the season, I was determined to keep my hold of winter as firm as it had been through the past few months.
When I had left home that morning, my mother had asked me to be careful. “Young ladies like you shouldn’t go walking around town by themselves,” she had told me, and I had scarcely attempted to understand her.
For some reason, I was reminded of my mother’s warning when I saw a little girl on the road. She was a tender girl, for I cannot think of an adjective more apt to describe her. She was young, easily a lot younger than I, and she was eyeing me with an expression I could not make sense of.
I looked at her, intrigued. She was a pretty girl. Indeed, her beauty was of the sort that managed to persist in spite of circumstances that are not altogether fortuitous. “She would have been a beautiful creature had she been born into privilege,” I thought to myself. “Had she had enough food, a nice, warm place to live in, she might have even preferred winter to the other seasons. Just like me.” The last clause struck me more than anything else. I looked at her hands. It took me some time to register that those once soft palms were now bruised and calloused. Her frame was tiny; there was little flesh there. Winter and hardship had eroded her smile a long time ago.
The pride with which I had set out of home that morning evaporated. The vanity with which I had walked out in my favourite overcoat and boots seemed foolish suddenly. I felt almost guilty to be walking about in them.
Even as I walked on towards the ice cream stand I could not help but mull on the differences between the girl and myself. I was scary, a creature of vanity, a self-titled ‘Yeti’ who dwelled on the superficial and was proud of her perceived ability to conquer the cold. She seemed a ground squirrel who had missed her way to the burrow and come to hibernate in a mysterious snow-flaked land.
A feeble squirrel had been awfully frightened by a gigantic Yeti.
I was suddenly unhappy. I had come to detest winter more than anything else. I turned on my heels and walked towards home. As I looked up at the sky, the sun’s weak rays forced me to close my eyes. I hoped spring would come soon. It was too hot to be wearing the silly over coat, after all. I was ready to moult with the seasons.
By: Sumi Thapa
By: Sumi Thapa