In search of heat

Photo by Feteme Fuentes on Unsplash

In the mountains where I spent my childhood, spring was never warm. The muddy soil was dotted with snow patches, and icicles clung to gutters late into May. It was like glitter on the pavement when they finally fell to the ground, the tiny shards of winter shattering in puddles. When the afternoon sun licked them up, it was as if they’d never been there, as if winter had never covered our town or home.

A few streets over in a brown a-frame set back behind the trees lived my friend Natalie, and when the weather finally warmed, we’d walk from her house to the lake in our bathing suits, our bare bodies skirting along the windy roads, towels and book bags slung over our shoulders. When the occasional car whooshed past, splashing our bodies with cold air and goose pimples, we’d hug the white line and each other for safety and warmth. It was a reminder we were alive. Also that winter was hardly behind us.

You had to walk past the cow field to get to the lak…