Nostalgia creeps in, subtly at first, then snowballs to full-blown homesickness.
I miss looking outside at the 2 feet of snow left overnight and lamenting the length of my parents’ driveway. I miss donning my Michelin Man down-filled jacket with its mildly effeminate fur trim and shoveling for an hour wit my dad burning half a tank of fuel to warm the car. I miss the need for remote control car starters, which we were too cheap to actually purchase but which I thought were the coolest things ever. I miss coming in out of the cold, rosy-cheeked and crusty-skinned, to a glass of hot, strong Russian tea. I miss the half-shot of brandy my dad slipped into my hot, strong Russian tea while my tea-totaling mother’s gaze rested elsewhere.
I miss snow days and the delicious irony of the phrase “snowed in”. I miss going to the park with my dog and watching him bounce around like a small lamb in the deep powder, having the word frolic drift through my mind. I miss watching him shove his long black schnoz deep into the snow and calling his name to make him jerk his head up guiltily, clumps snow sticking to his nostrils – like a coke-head at a drug bust.
"I swear it's just snow," he says.
I miss waiting for the TTC bus in the middle of winter. I miss spitting on the bus shelter glass and using the length of the frozen spittle trace as a temperature gauge. I miss the disgusting road slush left behind by the buses, composed of a combination of salt, ice, snow, and something brown that I hope is coffee. I miss splashing around in the road slush in my galoshes. I miss using the word galoshes in a non-ironic fashion.
I miss sitting by the single-pane windows of our old apartment and chipping away at the frost, making obscene drawings to the chagrin of my parents. I miss causing my parents to have chagrin. They probably still have nagging suspicions that I may be a homosexual because of all the icy penises I left on the living room windows.
I miss that holiest of rites for all children of the frost: sticking my tongue onto a metal fence post and the shock of staring at my tongue flesh’s imprint on the indifferent steel after my friends roughly yank my face away. I miss the pain and the pride I feel after having done this.
I miss the different types of snow. I miss knowing the different types of snow and how to make perfect snowballs out of that moste coveted of varieties – packing snow. I miss throwing snowballs at passing cars or, if no fresh snow had recently fallen, ice pellets. I miss throwing wedges of ice onto the street to see if the approaching lime green Toyota Tercel could plow through them. I miss cracked windshields and flat tires. I miss pleading innocence at an angry bearded Iranian man as he shakes his hairy fists at me. I miss having no concept of body shops, car accidents, or repair costs.
I miss the sun reflecting off the white expanse of snow outside. I miss squinting in the winter. I miss the ninja-like sunburn on the exposed part of my skin between my eyebrows and the top of my nose.
I miss trudging through the snow to the local pub and ordering whiskey shots for the bar to warm up. I miss the burning feeling as the whiskey permeates every extremity, making my mittened fingers tingle. I miss wearing mittens, tying them to my wrist – proclaiming to the world that I have, possibly still do, ride in a shortened school bus designated by shapes and colours rather than numbers. I miss trying to drunkenly piss the words “Isaac sucks balls” in the snow after a night at the bar, only to realize that my frightened and frigid penis will make this task exceedingly difficult – wondering if this is what it’s like to have an enlarged prostate and dreading this potential future. I miss the feeling of the burning urine when if finally trickles out, and the hot pungent steam that wafts off the yellowing snow.
I miss the inevitable self-soiling that results from the thawing traces of frozen urine after zipping up. I miss secretly not caring that I am walking around with soiled underpants.
I miss the frigid mess that is home in wintertime.
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