Snow flying

Did you ever do that thing, when you were a kid, when it snowed at night? You find somewhere where the light is shining up into the sky, making the falling flakes shine, but you can’t see any trees or buildings, and just stare up into the whiteness unblinking. After a while, an optical illusion makes the direction appear to reverse, and instead of the snow falling, you begin to rise. Just for a while, before your brain kicks in and puts things right, it feels like you are shooting upwards in a spray of white. Up into the empty places of the sky like a rocket or a bird, like a soul flying free, the way you hope it will, one day when the traces of life are cut.

Tonight we had snow, which may be commonplace where you are, but is not common in my part of the world. At best a smattering of white over the ground like icing sugar over a mince pie. Maybe up in the hills of Scotland or Wales or Cumbria the sheep are huddled behind rocks cursing the elements, but down here in the seamy cities, the hot breath of the underground blows up and melts the snowflakes as neatly as you like.

Tonight we had snow – nice, fat and jolly, and I went outside in the darkness wearing my father’s cap. I went onto the lawn away from the house and looked upwards into the ‘singularity’ from where all snow comes. I waited and I waited, and in that silence what thoughts come. And then in the silence, what thoughts go. Maybe one day.

Perhaps the soul is what we are underneath and inside, deep down. No flesh, no bone, no genetic inheritance. Nothing in the way, like your weight or your height or your ethnicity. Just the essential you that can go wherever it wishes.

Standing there letting go, being a kid again - some things remained stubbornly the same: The night was still cold, I was still worried, the wine was still warm in my veins, the cat was still grumbling for her dinner, it was still sunday night into monday morning, and I still loved you.

In the end I rose.

       ( and to think I was treading on these.)