the smell of snow

i usually can smell snow about a month off. i'll start telling people mid-fall that snow is creeping up on us and to be ready for it.

today it snowed. it's snowed a few times over the last few weeks, but today was the first day in Toronto with plows and saltspreaders and teams of people shovelling until they're blue in the fingers.

tonight when i got home from class i had to give my gate's iced-over lock CPR again as i had just this morning. the process that usually takes the longest two minutes one can imagine, took about five minutes tonight: the unfreezing of the lock, the cracking of the ice that's coated the clasp, the manipulating of the metallic fitting that holds it all together.

about halfway through the process i caught the scent of the gorgeous snow that had caused me so much grief today; it smelled like my childhood. like a very specific moment in my childhood when i had run in to a lone kitten in the snow. it was dark outside and very cold but my mom was allergic to cats, so i couldn't take her in. instead i spent about an hour making her a little house into which she gladly nestled. i watched her for a while after that, basking in the glow of a fresh kitten snuggled in fresh snow. i watched and wished and don't remember feeling cold at all.

that memory brought me a little bit of warmth on a very cold tonight and i shook my head while chuckling at the fact that i get to do all this frozen gate stuff again in less than eight hours.