This is the kind of day all of us know. But less of us would like to remember. It’s the kind that lays entombed in the remoteness of our hearts. Engraved. Conserved. A standstill. A stand-off. Some of us find it in memory, others buried in early childhood days, whilst others might have read about them in storybooks or a witty novel. Days like these are gritty. Shaky. Turning things upside down. Those are the days that make you spin around and around in the rabbit hole. Shake you up until nothing is the same. You trip, head over heal, tumble and tumble, plunging into the great deep. On and on. Until nothing looks like it-self or it-other. They tend to catch you by surprise. Knocking you down like an avalanche. Leaving you battered and crippled within. Making you wish down to the bone you could just skip this day like it never happened. This is one of those days. The day that winter sets in.
It starts like any autumn’s day. It’s hard to tell the difference, really. Maybe a well trained hawk’s eye could spot it from a different perspective. Up high and unrestrained by the borders of possibility and expectability. Soaring high above and free of the limited perception of life down below. It soars, it roars, it spreads its majestic wings, elevating the universe itself. Peace settling in. And every wave of the two wings swings and strikes like a sublime choir. Angels breathing a breeze of peace. Commanding the next move with dead certainty.
But down below the world still tastes like summer and honey. Like new and curious. Here, a good hawk’s eye is not aware. Dawn still aglow with the fiery colours of festive bonfires and the smell of flowers alive in every deep breath you take. Daisies roll over your tongue while a droplet of sunflower sticks to the roof of your mouth. A splashy palet of daffodils, irises and lilacs emerge on the stage. The air still syrupy from voices of lovers talking just a little too soft, covering their honeyed words in delicious mystery. You smile with the memories and the love that sways your heart. The sweets of summer can still be tasted when you stick out your tongue. It’s fresh and tingles funnily with long walks at the beach, pops your favourite flavours of castles made from blankets and pillows, has the comforting structure of picknicks in the park, and fills your tummy with buckets full of worry-free laughter. You smile in every cell of your being. A pleasing abundance of enchanting delights. A summer that never seems to end. A wish it never to end. Your lips speak lightly like cotton.
But then, alas, when night falls, the chilly winter wind blows its horn to reveal its long-feared arrival. An uncomfortable gust of powdery snow dances up in the air. A brash stream of winter dashes wildly through the imagination of summer’s mirage. Two images not blending so well. The last rays of sweet sunburn orange set the frozen lake ablaze. The water has come to a still, its molecules forced to peaceful hibernation. Flames of golden-blue break free like a wildfire and gallop untamed into all the corners of the frozen surface. You can hear them stride and send a shiver through the ice. A painting alive changing at the pace of a heartbeat. Like northern lights, the last dance of summer captured on a virginal canvas catching your eye. You don’t want to blink.
At the same time the shadows of the trees play a different part on this wintery stage. Ghastly and unwholesome. You behold them going all ruby, as if the shadows start to bleed their long-kept secrets into the frozen mirror. Deep tones of twilight glooming and full of meaning. Words unspoken drifting in place. A voice too delicate to recall. Too precious to dissipate. Its beauty a tad too painful to behold. Undisclosed stories marrying unsaid emotions, mingling with flaming colours, combustible and spirited, to finally assimilate in one explosive stillness. Hush now. So tempted to indulge in this kissing goodbye. A heartbeat comes to rest in your lap.
It’s an early winter’s eve and the moon is out. High she rises. Unwilling to drop. Like an atom and core all together at once, she revolves around herself. Like a queen she rightfully reigns the heavenly territory that is solemnly hers. She winks to the curvy river, all a bit too slender for the royal name she bears. The sky turns pale while meeting her in this place. Not knowing if to blush, or to sweep her of her feet in a coquette cruise along the spheres in the heavenly sky. The mighty old oak tree bows to her under the weight of a thick layer of snow on its branches, meandering like crystallised veins, alit in the barren winter’s air. It’s almost as if she’s breathing, the moon. Beating in the dark. Pulsating veins giving her life. Her ankles deeply rooted in the frozen ground giving her sort of a downbeat appearance. The last summer’s heat has left the ground, she can’t put on her mossy socks today.
It will take another few months before the cycle repeats. The last few sticky leafs uttering a crisp mumble into the icy air, clinging on the wood that has become their home. A lonely blade of green grass, fixed like a statue at the shores of the lake, whispers the last memories of summer’s joy and bashful smiles. A homage to unbroken hearts. Trueness lost to quickly. Summer seems stubborn, not yet willing to let go. How could it? The green blade all by itself seems to carry the burden of God’s promised land.
The squeaky snow curves underneath the weight of two pair of feet. The imprints deep and warm. They seem to be surprisingly familiar with one another. It’s one of those things a calendar simply wouldn’t be able to explain. There is a story behind the story. No wonder. A deeper truth about a gathering before physical form. A meeting before time brought them together. And like a pre-arranged reunion they walk in reminiscence and remembrance of hearts full open.
However, today things have been set in motion. Again. Side by side Two grey shades wander between lost and found. Trotting consciously making every step count. Stretching every step as much as possible for it not to end. Steps put in synch and matching the orbit of the planets hidden in their eyes. For some they may appear as one. Their boots leave timid marks in the snow. Feet making words making sentences making stories. Intertwining with the narrative of crushing snow.
For those well trained ears that know the way of the snow, there is a story to be heard about the meeting of soles underneath a starry spring sky. Not that long ago and not long enough. It’s a memoire telling you about cheeky and wandering feet, traveling and dancing side by side. About feet kissing, dreaming and believing. About twenty cuddly toes never stepping upon one another and gracefully making way for the next. Not caring about foot or owner. Head over heel. Feet that were bound to walk together. Chosen to stride together until sole became soul.
But somewhere along the way the promise of that day was left abandoned. Like a lithograph exposed to too many days of sunlight, the writing becomes frail and aerial. An easy target for a swiftly and nifty predator. And so, a twirly gust discovers this harmonised pair of earthly composition. As these things tend to go, it takes no longer than an elegant pirouette to erase the words written. Between an idle draw of breath. And while the shape of the foot print withdraws its claim on the snow, the memories seem to fade all together a little too.
Time breaks open and the once careful pendulation hesitates into a stiffened suspension. At the shore of the frozen lake Two shades layoff into a lagune of affectionate pausation. The bleak moon waters in the sky. Bigger than a full grown bear she over-towers the scene, revealing the snowy tundra in front of them. Nor ice nor water, merely an infinite unknown. Liquidity turned solid. Cold as ice. The electric blue light of Mother Moon reverberates on the snowy mountain range and spreads like neurons across the vast emptiness.
Two seems to shiver. Today it’s not the ice that turns beloveds cold and leaving them longing for warm embraces. Craving for the intimacy of their interwoven bodies in front of an embering fireplace, while glow and tinder scatters on brittle skin. No, those days dwell somewhere else. Today, it’s the hollowness of the wasteland facing them that makes their breaths stumble. The road ahead is waiting. Like loose limps, gasps fall over one another and pile promptly up. They run out of breaths to share. He knows. Metaphorically, he wraps his arms around her — for her not to fall too deep. I’ll catch you, he only thinks but doesn’t tell. But it rests where it hurts the most. And so, the silence echos in the archaic parts of their souls. It is terribly terrifying. And they both know it to be true. At world’s end hearts are taken apart.
A silvery thought comes to mind and then as quick as it is born it crumbles under too heavy anticipation. They look at one another, aware, seeing more than meets the eye. Knowing more than eyes can see. They know each other deep. They have dwelled into unexplored estates of the other that oneself doesn’t even know. But now they both feel it is a mess. Were they always meant to say goodbye? She gasps for some air. Before the last tone quivers on her candy soft lips, he takes the oxygen out of his chest and offers is freely. A sense of breathing space. Her head bends ever so slightly, her sign of appreciation to him. He glows, it shows. Her soft lips curl in the same familiar manner her fingers slightly do when she’s safely asleep by his side, striking a gracious stage pose in the limelight of the stars and the curtain of dreams. A thousand memories he remembers and he cries hidden in his own shadow. You couldn’t have loved me better, is all what races through his mind. The sweet privilege of being yours, is all what beats in his heart.
She opens the skin of her coat, all dressed in concealed silhouettes. Every touch a redefining phrase. The wind is on its game today. It collides full frontal and catches shards of her shape, stealing parts of her she no longer fancies to keep. She undresses herself of those obsolete pieces in quest of the underlaying and unanswered potential underneath. She catches her flow. It’s that what drives her to explore. And that in some situations no choice seem to remain. No matter how hard you try to disbelieve that what you are trying to avoid. Nothing but the inevitable chain of events will shape the road you are bound to follow. No, maybe even more so, you actively choose to follow. And that’s why it hurts the most. Scares the most. Because it leaves you with nothing but surrender. But does one see clearly when visibility is zero?
They both feel it. A part understands the unescapable and the other half just really doesn’t want to loose their dearest. This is a matter of the heart of hearts. Of worlds unseen. And to this, there is one comforting thought that somehow eases the pain to the Two— making it bearable in the bigger story of the soul — the thought that roads that split, may once more join when spirits are foretold to flame together. A wild flare blazes in their chests. Like a microscopic twin-star they flare together. One last time.
And once it’s time to say goodbyes, no word suffices. No action can make the next undone. It is one perpetual movement of action and reaction. Choices, even more than destiny so, are set in motion. Nothing but silence to share remains to honor their time together. And while they stare into the great wide open, gazing into their unwritten futures, new roads are born. The ever burning flames seem to shift a little in hue. Nothing but a tiny pinch. If not for me telling, you might not even notice. But with the tiniest of significance it tumbles.
When white turns to black and inside to out, it is right in that moment she takes her first step. Now by herself. It has been set in motion. A leap of faith into the unknown. Her boots searching in vain for solid ground when all is but dark ice beneath her. It’s a leap of mystery. She’s not one of those dwelling in the past. And for one last solid moment in time, she turns around and meets the eyes she was supposed to marry. Freezing the frame. The surface tension shatters under the pressure of unspilled tears. She turns away. All what remains now is the next step.
His head turns towards her with the delicacy of a flower unfolding. Embodying the unfolding of everlasting love and beauty of imperfect perfection his being emanates for her. His lips moves with the soothing agility of two love letters dancing in the wind. One by one the letters drift with an unbolting sureness through midair in her direction. When they touch her on her cheeks, she ever so slightly curls her fingers one last time. And in her ear they spell the meaning of his heart to her:
From the moment I met you, I knew I had always loved you. And now we find each other here at the edge of the world. After all these years I finally found you, to fade out in the dark again so soon. Never to keep. Never to hold.
Yes I know that you know that I love you so.
And that I love you enough to let you go.
