Five favourite things since my childhood: THE SNOW

This is the beginning of the story I have been writing for several years. I began to write it on my daughter's advice as an exercise to improve my English. But gradually it turned into a real story about my childhood. I thought maybe these recollections would help me to understand better my psychological problems which have been haunting me all my life. But it has another value for me too – I am trying to imprint the world which we lost forever. I do hope we lost it forever and will manage sooner or later to build another better world. Nevertheless there were some things there I regret we lost and remember them with nostalgia...

 1. THE SNOW.

I like when the light is reflected by some smooth or wavy surface. It is like a signal from the other better world. Of course it is all only in my imagination. But since my childhood I have liked the sea, the lakes and even the puddles. I remember walking with my best friend Tonya just after the summer rain. The asphalt of the road was warm and wet and some silvery steam was rising from everywhere. We were walking along the edge of the road watching the blue sky with patches of bright white clouds reflected by transparent warm puddles. The air was fresh and full of ozone scent. What a pleasure to walk after the summer rain!

But especially I liked the snow. Those wet gray dirty Odessa winters were so dull and tiring. The snow was like a present, like a miracle. I remember myself crying when the first snow was melting and my mother saying that the first snow always melted. When I was at primary school we had several really snowy winters. All the children were so happy when it was snowing. Our surroundings looked so wonderful and festive with all the surfaces covered with bright sparkling snow. And a lot of interesting occupations we could find outside: sleighing on our sledges, gliding on our feet on every slippery path. We made these paths with our own feet. The adults weren't happy about that. Now I understand them but at that time it was such a pleasure to glide along a narrow shining strip that was polished by so many previous gliders. It was some kind of brotherhood which was not available for adults. 

 

And we made the snow-men of course and had fights with snowballs. I tried to avoid the latter because I was not good at throwing stones or snowballs and our boys got so aggressive when they were fighting. 

 

I liked just walking among the trees covered with snow looking for especially beautiful places and investigating tiny snowflakes when the snow was falling. In every snowfall they were different and so complicated in their forms. And how mysteriously they sparkled in the sun or in the moon light. It was something from a true fairy tale, something really mysterious and beautiful.