She came to me in the middle of winter at beginning of a white weekend. I remember the warmth of my morning coffee on that Saturday. I remember looking out the window and thinking how the world had turned white and black generously sprinkled with shades of grey. I remember looking towards the east, at the ominously grey skies and trying to find the sun hoping it would warm my cheeks. It took me a while, but when I did find it, the sun was hardly more than a gentle lamp in the sky.
She came unexpectedly. I remember the pounding in my ears and the sound of my breath. Was that really my heart? Most of all, I remember her eyes. They were a deep green , like a tiny bit of spring in the middle of winter. Sometimes, when I looked closely enough, I thought I saw specks of gold in them. She was my own little bundle of warmth. And joy, oh-so-much-joy!
The doctors said that there was something wrong with her. She did not respond fast enough, but I knew that there was something special about her and that they didn't understand. She didn't think like everyone else. She was a child of spring born in the middle of winter, her mind belonged with colours and music.Her thought did not follow linear steps of logic but followed her own inner rhythm. She needed her own special world, where spring lasted for ever. I knew it before they said it, of course, she did not belong here, with us. She had to go, I knew.
But I had endless days of spring while I had her.
Together we discovered that the world was made of interesting patterns and secret laws. There was an Underthing full of small thingammables which scurried all day and sometimes deep into the night to keep the middle stable. The middle was pushed into place by the beautiful blue Overthing that was filled with white fluff that attracted winged thwangs, which looked for hidden gold all the time. We had to eat apples to discover hidden wishes and drink our milk everyday because it filled up our bones. Sleep was good because, it helped the night fairies spread magic dust on the flowers.
Winter melted into spring with flowing colours and fresh blossoms everywhere. Soon summer followed with walks in the park and hot splashes in the pool. Autumn was a canvas of yellows and oranges which my Zola told me were because of the sun sending some of his warmth to the earth to prepare her for the upcoming winter. Soon all seasons blurred into long walks and laughter, hot cookies fresh from the oven,dips in the lake and made-up stories about numbers that just wouldn't stay put on paper! As is the nature of things, time did fly by, we must have had a lot of fun.
On another winter day, in another time, with another storm building up in the east and suffocating the early morning sun, I look out the window again and wait for spring. For, in spring, I remember my Zola best.
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