A Winter Stroll
Outside, the colorful world has all been covered by pure white snow, solemn, tranquil and clean. The windows in the houses are taught by nature to draw frost flowers on the pane, with a thick layer of ice blossoms expanding the entire glass, forbidding people from watching the outer world. Households are cooking warm dinners, with soups exhaling swirls of white mist bringing ambrosial scents. Other fried vegetable dishes are also fixed and placed on the table waiting for loved ones to come back. Most families will go directly watching TV after a square meal. But having had a full stomach and a warmed body, I put on my turtleneck and a big thick red down garment and go out strolling with my mother.
The outside is darkening but not black yet. With the glittering reflection of the white snow, the world looks brighter than it should be for the time. The air is breezing gently with no nipping wind. But chilly as it is, a shudder convulses my body and I subconsciously put my hands in my pockets. Looking around, colorful lights are shining from windows of households sending a sense of warmth, which would strike the particular nerve of a drifter who is far apart from his home. After the snow has stopped for hours, there are already pathways of solidified snow on which it is easy to walk, but I choose to step onto the untouched grounds of soft fluffy snow without any footprints and decide to create a new path on my own. I want to draw a meandering trail of footprint behind, mingled with the sound of snow squishing by my shoes, and bring myself into a childhood recall.
I like to go out in winter with mom. Hand in hand, we move slowly together with split steps to prevent a slipping on the snow. When I was young, she usually took me home from school. On the way, time after time, she would bend down checking if my scarf is covering all the facial parts below my eyes so that I wouldn’t be hit by the whipping winter wind. Every time, mom would buy me a stick of haws wrapped up with syrup and then I would happily eat while telling my everyday school stories to mom. Sometimes the falling snow was also quietly joining us listening to my lovely children narratives. Sometimes the two of us were also excited enough to sing out melodies freely and loudly with no regard of passers-by and with no care about whether my scarf is wrapping well at my face or not. Mom is a good singer and I used to be a good mimicker. Especially after a big snow, when the whole city was quieting down and the noisy traffic was being soothed, there came our sweet singing, with ripples of echoes lingering in the air……