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Our first snowfall began at 9 a.m. this very morning.

Down came crystal ice, lacy clouds, and with it came the seasonal side of human troubles. I found my self transformed into a filthy romantic, gazing longingly out the window, wrapped in a wool blanket and holding my little brother who smiled at the Frosty the Snowman cartoon on TV. With the cold always comes the chills. The ones that shimmy up your shirt as you stand in the bathroom, trying not to look in the mirror while you undress. The chills that creep into your veins through open wounds and wind themselves around your rib-cage. I couldn't feel the warm air shooting from the vents while I sat beside them. I couldn't taste the Jack-In-The-Box daddy brought home at midnight. He put on an old movie and slowly everyone drifted to sleep. That's when I stole a few hours for myself. Taking my little doe-eyed puppy out into the yard, tossing him into a snowdrift for the first time. He cowered there for a moment, before darting back onto the deck, staring in awe and terror down at the snow. I lit a stolen cigarette and plopped down into the freezing mess.

I had a little too much to eat and felt like sleeping right there in my dampened jeans and Joe's Crab Shack t-shirt. I thought about putting out the Pal-Mal stick and being a straight-laced little girl for the holidays. I thought about the stinging of my latest stress-relief therapy (a bit of a home remedy) and also about Robert Plant's hair. Soon enough, after endless replays of my favorite music videos, my mind had emptied. The frigid air had ****** all my thoughts and memories from my head like a vacuum cleaner. All that remained was a sense of impending doom. A needle in the base of my skull, every nerve-ending in my body was pinched by icy fingers. Someone was calling my name from inside me, My own skin was shifting and rippling over my muscles, trembling and tingling. There was somewhere I had to be, something I should be doing, someone who needed my help. I sat up and looked around the yard, from the chain link fence, to the gorgeous view of the valley and the city *******, to the ugly siding of my manufactured home. My eyes darted back and forth, my puppy, the chicken house, the dead rose bush. I was alone, alone with my dog in a white miracle. Every snowflake looked like a stray bullet, raining down on me from the gods, but kissing my cheeks and melting on my feverish skin. I wished i could fall like that, and drip onto someone's lips or cling to their eyelashes.  But i was here, alone in the darkness with smoke-scented gloves and breath, in a yard of dead grass frozen in a flood.And then I started to cry. I didn't know why, I still have no idea what kind of madness washed over me as I shivered, my *** soaked and my nose running. But I sobbed and sobbed and put my head between my knees. The snow had gathered on the shoulders of my woolen pea-coat and sprinkled down as I shook and gasped, I must have sat there for half an hour, listening to a train go by in the valley, singing to the empty streets, trying to pull myself together. I'm still shivering even sitting here in my warm bed. But at that moment, I was as fragile and fleeting as the very dust that had settled across the entire town.

I managed to dry my eyes and stumble back through the front door tailed by a whimpering brown pup. Everyone, still crashed on the couches and floor, unaware of the scraggly disaster crawling through the living room. The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner and the TV played static. I kissed my baby brother on the forehead and slipped my lighter back into my coat pocket. The season had set in, the snow was here to stay. I was left wondering about the madness of  the season and the sanity of the skies.

Every year,  water freezes mid air and falls onto the earth in heaps of cold white heaven. It's a ******* miracle. It happens every year without fail and yet somehow it surprises and amazes us every time.