A BITTER COLD

The temperature read -4 degrees Celsius this morning. From the balcony windows, I could see the ice weighing down the branches of trees and clinging to roof tops of the townhomes across the parking lot. This was a coldness we were not used to here in Texas. By the time we finished breakfast after noon, it had warmed up only one degree.

Breakfast consisted of eggs. I had kajgana, which is a type of scrambled eggs made with buttermilk and sour cream, whilst my son had sunny side up eggs. Accompanying the eggs were green bell peppers, jalapenos, baby tomatoes, avocado, feta, and English muffins. Fresh chives, thyme, and oregano made the meal complete.

After breakfast, my son and I bundled up in ill-fitting but warm jackets and headed outdoors for a walk in the frozen winter wonderland. Icicles hung from signs and fences. My son loved the melodic sound that the icicles made as he swept his arm across them, knocking them down. There were so many of them, some close to 13 centimetres in length. He said they sounded like playing a xylophone.

‘It’s so cold, it burns’, I heard my son say as we made our way back home. He was right. It was a bitter cold but it was nice to be outdoors where everything seemed to be frozen in time.

In a way, this extreme weather was like the state of things with the pandemic. An extreme and unexpected circumstance where we all wait for life to begin again thaw from the effects of bitterness of a raging virus

Once back inside the warmth of our home, we settled into a weekend routine of reading and cleaning and simply being grateful.