A decade in New York and I am still not used to the cold of winter. It pierces your skin and rattles your bones. The wind slaps you with silence and your layers of clothing is your own personal cloth cage. The world still zips by, but the weather slows you down, with the occasional bursts of speed when slipping on ice and snow.
Most people associate winter with white, but I have always found it grey with a little cyan. There are bursts of clear skies despite the biting cold, but more often, there’s this shroud of gloom.
There is a certain honesty to winter. Trees shed their leaves, showing their bare branches, uncovering park views. Walking down the streets, people are opposite, covering most of their body so you won’t be distracted with the sight of skin.
A decade in New York and island warmth in me is almost beaten out. In its place, a certain cool and calculated care. It must be the years of real touch dulled by gloves and puffy coats. Maybe it was the years of thinking if putting on two pairs of socks and tying your 12-hole boots was even worth the walk to the subway. Maybe it’s the countless of hours crammed in a moving tin box with hundreds of people, all united in the effort to not making eye contact. The benefit, when I do put on the three shirts and that heavy jacket, when I do walk those twenty minutes sligthly shivering, I know that it will be worth it, even for just a glance of you.