winter

The beautiful, light, silent snow which fell in a dreamy slow dance, a few weeks ago, has turned into sloshy, harsh and frozen ice.   The charming Christmas lights that brightened the dark morning walks to Adam's school are still hanging above.  Yet, now, dark and unused, they are  exposed as simple gray wires -- the magic is gone -- like the view behind the stage after an enchanting play. The show is over and winter is fully here, an uninvited long term guest.  Even the shop windows on the way seem unkempt after the holiday frenzy, all they offer now are sales.  Paris streets are either white with ice or white with salt used for de-icing narrow paths along the sidewalks.  The City's attempt to prevent people from slipping still falls short when it comes to poop traps -- frozen or fresh.

Only a few die hard  Parisian women are still wearing high heeled boots, though they now use their heels more like mountain climbers -- dig, anchor and move the hidden hips, all the while covered by heavy mink coats.  The daytime temperatures are dropping down to  6 and 7 degrees below zero and the twenty minute walk to Adam's school has become a 40 minute dangerous hike through slippery ice. 

 

The Parisian streetlife is markedly different as well -- less people in cafes, fewer people smoking on corners and their old expression of intellectual rumination is now one of an irritated angst. Even the patisseries seem empty.  The only noticable lines are forming in pharmacies, video stores and, for some reason I cannot understand, in hair salons.  

The view through the hats which cover our whole face with only narrow slits for the eyes reveals Paris in black and white -- like robbers we walk the street stealing heat from occasional cafes.  I conjure a memory of unbearable summers in Tel aviv where the air conditioned banks were the only intermittent relief walking through the city.  In sharing this memory with Adam in the early morning walk -- he tells me he doesn't believe summers can be as hot as the winters are cold. 

The only way I can deal with my first real winter, at the age of fifty, is to think about it as a long zen retreat -- the depravation, the harsh conditions, and the nagging question "but why am I here?"  I remember the teachings -- doubts are to be dropped and replaced by the microscopic present -- the here and now sensations and the breath.  Returning back from dropping Adam at school, I try to be present with the sound of the slashing ice under my feet, the tingling sensation of frozen toes, the shortcomings of the cumbersome layers of clothes to keep warm, and the visible breath coming out of my mouth like a puffing train on a steep mountain climb.  I try but fail to be present as my mind takes me away to other fleeing thoughts, and then to frustration and unhappiness.  All I can do is plan on doing a better job of being present with the hot chocolate I will prepare for myself as soon as I arrive home.  Until my next exit to pick up Adam in the afternoon it will do.