Winter Passageway

We would take trips to the library. The cold, bitter winter ground strangling our feet as we galloped through the snowdrifts, doing our very best at avoiding any straight path. I was younger then. Stories were more than words read from a book. They were a passageway, and inadvertently my imagination grew to the sound of their melody. If a story was a melody, then a book on tape was a song. And its voice sang louder than any precious childhood memory. Of course I sang along. My mind danced. My torso sat contemplating what was being read. How on earth could such a simply written story be presented so beautifully? Exaggeration is the key you see (I found this to be true). Their emphatic voice would spring out like Sir. Jacks head sprang forth from a certain box I once saw. Full of surprise. Full of spite. Their words kissing my thoughts. My imagination aspiring to the beautiful melody.

Growing up in this wintered state had its gifts. I became a fascinated child of snowmen and Christmas trees at an early age. The countdown began as October ran away. Red and green strands of paper intertwined; each day one was ripped away, revealing a closer connection to my appreciation for toys and candy. A shorter chain to be slowly disassembled. A symbol every child understands and is drawn into without confrontation. Living those days, so young, time would drag on for years. Every moment lasts forever to a mind where life seems to have no end.