Many people suffer from seasonal affliction disorder come the winter months. The lack of sunlight and outdoor times brings them down. I personally don't suffer from that kind of depression. Instead what I experience is a problem with time and reality.
The Christmas break has a history with my sometimes insatiable imagination. Most winters you can find me curled up with a book, and that's been my tradition for many years. One of my favorite Christmas breaks was in the seventh grade. I was part of a book club at my school (I now run my own book club as an adult), we were allowed to check out four books instead of the regular three our library allowed. That was the year that I gave in and read Harry Potter. I didn't just read Harry Potter, I finished the first four books in five days. I ate and breathed Harry Potter, no sleep happened because you can't read when you're sleeping (I really need science to figure that one out). It's also the year my parents gave me a copy of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' album and was the last year I got one of those Lifesaver "books" of candy. I also read "Sword-Dancer" by Jennifer Roberson. (I should interject here that my parents did not censor my media intake. Not because they were super progressive artsy types, but because they just couldn't keep up with all the books I was snagging at the used book store with my allowance. I find it weird when I talk to people that are "traumatized" by movies they saw or books they read against their parents wishes. I turned out to be a horror junkie and haven't feared for a creature under the bed since last night. So really what was their problem?)
A few years ago winter was defined by Haruki Murakami's "IQ84", a book that deals with time and alternate realties. Don't get me start on that damn chrysalis, it's still got my brain keyed up on mystical feels.
Another year I sat down in my old home (we technically had two homes at one point but they were both trailers) and I read straight through "Little Women" cover to cover. It was the first time I had read a book in one sitting. That's not so much a feat these days but it was that day that I learned of the curious way time and reality slipped.
The cool air brings the memories of a first kiss with a boy who I hadn't yet had the courage to admit I liked despite the obvious mutual feelings. A friend encourage me and we ran across the school until we found him walking home from band practice. The leaves were swirling and it was the last day before winter break.
It brings the scents of traditional Mexican stews and big loafs of bread.
It's the beeps and blips of hours of 'Star Wars: Pod Racer' on my computer. It's also just hours of marathons of the original trilogy on TNT because we didn't own the movies. Princess Leia taught me to rescue myself at all the right ages every winter.
It brings back Gwen Stefani's L.A.M.B. album because we all got it that one year it snowed in my South Texas home through Christmas Eve night so we woke up to a white Christmas (that shit was bananas).
It's me begging my husband to let me open my presents early because I'm excited for him to open his and see what I got him.
You can find me standing still for no reason at all, taking in deep breaths as the cold air pushes down into my soul and takes me away. In those moments I'm somewhere in the desert with Tiger and Del wielding a sword. I'm waking up to a Weasley sweater and Mrs. Weasley's homemade fudge. It could be the nineties in my mind and I'm listening to Janet Jackson with my sister on cassette tape while dad sets up my brand new telescope. Maybe I'm fifteen again running through those swirling leaves.
Time slips away from me and I'm living one-hundred different lives all at the same time. When the moment stops I feel both sad and joyous at the experience. To live so many lives, to have been in so many places and to be standing still in one place while it all happens; it's like having to go home as a kid because the street lights came on. Just five more minutes, please.
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