By Amit Epstein | 03/02/2011
There are days, just like on last weekend, when it snows ever so softly.
Little white flakes float in the air like feathers rather then frozen water. Thousands of crystalline ice-stars shiver through clouds dressed in all shades of grey, on their way down. They stay hanging on wires and leaves, they caress noses and cheeks, they gather on car shields and path sides, they crush on wooden surfaces, stone walls or metal stairs on emergency exits. They hold on to their convicting whiteness as long as possible, but they all dwell oh so shortly, linger for a tiny while as if reminded of a distant unnecessary memory, then die a transparent death and fade into the cool air. The streets are indifferent, most people consciously ignore them, and the winter routine skips over them as if they were nothing but a side effect, of no importance.
Photo: Amit Epstein
It is often at moments like this, that tears fill my eyes as a nearly-forgotten feeling takes over. Melancholy is no stranger to wintertime, but that is not the entire case; I was maybe 9 years old when my parents went on a coast to coast vacation in America. They were gone for about a month, so I and my then baby brother – 8 month old at the time – stayed at home and our grandmothers babysat us in rotation. It was summer, or at least it was very hot, and although I was by then used for my parents to go on vacations, they were never away for so long, so I was slowly getting, say, impatient. I'm not so sure anymore exactly what was it that I did, but my brother who did not even crawl yet, jumped one day and started walking. I guess his main goal was to keep away from me, as bothering him was my main entertainment. Whatever it was, our grandmothers decided that instead of the "joint custody" between them, to separate us so each will get one. Since taking a baby out of his surrounding was considered less responsible, it was I who was exiled to Giv'ataim (a city which is populated mostly with senior citizens, and is as suburbia as it gets). My grandmother, who only when my young brother was born finally allowed us, the older grandchildren, to start call her "grandma" in public, did not perceive herself as a babysitter in the conventional sense.
I was mainly accompanying her through her schedule, which did not change a bit due to my presence. It was fine with me, as I enjoyed the visits to the hair dresser, the doctors, the neighborhood boutiques and the bus-kiosk where my grandmother volunteered to supply sandwiches to soldiers. One of those days, almost at the awaited return of my parents, I told her I also wish to go abroad. I said, it must be wonderful, since my knowledge of anything happening out of the borders of Tel-Aviv started and ended with the postcards I received from my well-traveled parents. My grandmother was very unhappy with this saying, I noticed on her face expression which was impossible to be misinterpreted. I've asked her if she would also like to go abroad, maybe with me..? Maybe to visit the place she came from..? I knew it was far-far away, behind mountains and seas. She had an evil look, and I understood a mistake has been committed – she did not reply, so I was searching for a way out of this; I was that naïve. I remember that silence, it was horribly sensational. After a while she said, "No. I do not wish to go abroad, ever. I am at, where I wish to be, and that's that". At that age I was not yet familiar with the phrase curiosity killed the cat and so I've wasn't yet satisfied. I said, "Don't you ever wish to see your home? Your friends? Don't you miss it? any of it..?!"
It was summer, or at least it was very hot, she looked at me with her ice cold eyes and whispered "The snow. I miss the snow, when it falls soft and slowly all is white, and then – it's gone as if it never happened". But there were traces to that snow as her eyes were melting into tears, and her tears mixed with mine and ever since when it snows ever so softly I cry her tears, and think of the day my parents returned and my little brother did not wish to be held by my mother and ran away from her on his little feet, which was a wonder to her, and the pain on her face ended only when my father caught the resistant infant and forced him to a hug.
