when it snows like this, there are no sidewalks: boundaries disappear and white, unbroken spaces appear. even the roads become ambiguous entities. perhaps it is something about this, something about the temporary disappearance of well-paved rhythms, that provokes so much introspection and this longing for otherness that we suddenly have. we long for community, but we also long for solitude. accidents and birthdays and significant snowfalls shift the balance of our life, and, teetering to regain it, we’re forced to think and feel and experience and make decisions we normally wouldn’t allow ourselves to make. experiences become separate and distinct and lovely: holding hands becomes tinged with greater meaning, coffee becomes as black as the ground is white, simply kicking the earth or walking on walls is something to be done slowly and magnificently. everything is heightened; it’s easier to fall in love and to be aware of the world. you feel the air more; you taste the air more. everyone becomes familiar in the snow—people smile and nod and ask how you are; make snowballs and then throw them at you. the college campus masks of greek, beatnik, jock are taken off and we are left naked and unguarded, wholly and created with desires to be fully alive and known. we’re all cold in the snow, and a little drunk with the joy of being human. put in the context of a new environment, we become a full expression of who we really, truly are.

this, anyways, was what I thought about on my walk tonight.