What am I trying to say about winter?

The first blog post I ever wrote was called “What Winter Teaches Us About Death,” where I compared the short life of a high school friend with the short life of a snowflake on the cheek of the world. I didn’t really know what the hell I was talking about.

Because only now do I know that our bodies actually look like a pile of powdery snow when we are cremated. I know this because Ian died and this is the first winter that I have to sit inside and deal with it.

As the rain sprays the city in grayscale, I have to find my way through the fog.

What does it all mean? His life, and mine, and the times they intersected?

I honestly thought when I first started writing that life was like a knotted rope, and the more I sorted out my experience of it, by slipping lines of good words through each other in satisfying sentences – that eventually it would become unraveled.

And then I would have the space, and the flexibility that I am always straining for.

But instead, things have only gotten more tangled. Each friend I make, and drift away from, each dream I chase and get turned away from, are loops in my path. I feel it becomes harder to see a simple, straight rope, because all of my adjusting has created an inevitably windy life.

I still don’t know what I want to say about winter. I’m still working with the knots. What’s the point of writing this all down?

To say how much he meant to me. How terribly sad it is that snow always melts. I am also trying to comfort myself, by examining these loops in my mind with an attitude of calm acceptance. To make the fact that I have to fall into the ground too some day a little more acceptable.

Each day really is a gift, even if it’s cold and dark.