And white Sunday morning

I am remembering now my father singing to us as kids the first lines of a jota corrida: "Esta noche ha llovido, manana hay barro" (Last night it rained, tomorrow will be muddy). And goes on: "pobre del carretero que va en el carro" (poor cartwright who rides the cart).

Last night it snowed. The roads up to Muswell Hill are muddy. Sidewalks remain clean and soft, sometimes frozen white, trodden and yellowish; but the roads are thick with dark mud, a mud pregnant of thick water. As wheels roll by on it, the mud bursts and splash its liquid offspring aside It is rich and heavily pregnant, no one could tell. Up in Highgate Wood, the snow is virginal white, though, a good 5 inches in thickness of soft snow that smells strawberry. A couple of snowmen look upon the central meadow. A dog looks upon them and barks, sitting on its hindlegs, happy. The air is still, the white is total, the sky is gray locked and low. A flock of bells fly up and down the stillness from St. James. Young kids pull their blue or red, plastic sledges up the hill. When convenient or tired, they untie the string away from their little wrists and ask the mother to take on the job of pulling the double load. Young women look pretty, deliciously coquette and feminine, in their winter outfits, wearing colorful gloves and jackets and overcoats, tights and boots, with a pair of big and clear eyes emerging from a woolen hat and a sea of red or blond hair, soft and amazed, taking photographs, walking as women should walk.

The hypnotizing power of snow is as big as that of fire. On my way back, my running feet compress the snow underneath and the sound sounds like the snow is being compressed. A girl passes me by towards the opposite direction, running. I see again a big pair of soft and amazed eyes. One guess that we are not used to look into each other eyes in the mist of this silence, as sudden as unexpected... Oh! Sweet and scary morning. Time to read in the book of infinity, half asleep with listless eyes and spirits, cradled by the redemptive smoke of a reassuring drink and the fire in the fireplace.