By: Gabriela Yareliz
The current dropping temperatures and howling wind remind me of winter as a kid. I would take my favorite Christmas catalog and set a cushion or pillow by the heater vent on the floor (old Northern houses), and I would bring a blanket and get cozy and read. Every girl or doll had a story. I created all sorts of stories in my head. I would cut them out and create little booklets and slip the pages into those plastic slip covers that made it look glossy. (Bless my parents for never rationing my computer paper stash. While they printed, I was out here making snowflakes and fake tabloids.)
Maybe twice, I snuck up to the attic at my great aunt’s house. An old old house in Michigan. I still don’t know what that attic looked like, properly lit. It was intensely dark. I would tiptoe until I reached a point of incredible darkness. I was sure that past that point one would fall through the floor into the wall of the house or into some abyss. It felt like the end of the flat earth to me. Beyond that point was free fall. I would tiptoe around hearing the faint noise of a Chicago Bulls game downstairs and voices talking. It always remained a mystery. God only knows what that blueprint looked like. Maybe, it was just an optical illusion. Much of life is.
Sometimes, when I would wash the dishes propped up on my chair, I would peer around and any little light I saw counted for a wish. All you had to do was believe. (If you didn’t wish upon a star— I don’t know what to tell you. Try it sometime. Yes, I am a dreamer).
I adored all the string lights that would dangle from the houses. I loved the little lamps that lined the snowy paths up to the front doors. I loved seeing people’s Christmas trees through their foggy windows. I still do.
As someone who has realized they probably have an addiction to cortisol, the idea of wintering leaves me unsure of how to proceed. Winter invites us into a stillness. I tiptoe around this dark attic, wondering— if I don’t stop, will I fall off the floor into a pocket of the wall?
The winter darkness reminds us to not keep tiptoeing into the darkness but to gravitate toward the twinkling lights. They shine and dance for us. The little warm lights— they lead us home. Back to the cozy corner padded with blankets by the floor vent where the world disappears, and we stay enthralled with all the possibilities.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 