Snow Memoir

I remember cupping my hands against the glass, trying to block out all the light, and squinting through the window. The first floor roof always obscured my view. The trees along Solomon Pierce didn't help much either. Eventually, I would creep downstairs, carefully stepping on the outer edges of the squeaky steps. I'd push back the curtains on our front door windows and strain to see the tiny dots of white against the black backdrop of night.

What were those special curtains called, the ones that were attached at the top and the bottom? We had those curtains on the front door. Mom always yelled at us when we touched those curtains, but it never stopped us. "They'll turn yellow, look, they're already looking worn," she'd insist, but the second she turned around, my brother and I would go back to casually pushing back the sheer fabric to check if our friends were at the door. Eventually, she gave up and stopped telling us how much they were. Years later, they are noticeably yellowed on the inner edges and seriously stretched out of shape, but I doubt my mother cares.

In my head, I imagine the moment she changed her mind about the curtains. One minute, she glances at them and sees the money she's wasted on curtains we inevitably destroyed, and the time she's wasted trying to convince us not to. The next minute, in my vision, she looks at those curtains, yellow and pulled out of shape, and they conjure images of the two of us, young and eager, pulling back the fabric, looking for friends, butterflies, snowflakes, and car headlights. In her mind something shifts, and those curtains become the children that grew up tugging on them, the children that are now grown up and gone with curtains of their own to pull on and snowflakes of their own to chase.

I always loved snowflakes. There's something soft and comforting about the way they fall from the sky. I remember squinting through the window at the street lamp on 1 Solomon Pierce Road, trying to see tiny dots in the light it cast. It was always tough to tell if it was snowing, or if it was just an illusion created by flecks of dust on the window.