Snowmen of the World, Unite
December. The time of year which my 8 years in "the West" has taught me to picture through a few "usual suspects" images: watching "Serendipity" on TV (or, potentially, "Love, actually"); sipping spiced tea and mulled wine in the evenings; witnessing the madness of shopping centres in the pre-Christmas vortex of buying, wishing, and hating; endless fund-raisers and appeals to Christian charity on all sides; dreading January 1st, when a new challenge to prove something in our lives starts...
Well, Pepy belongs to December, but isn't part of any of those things. He was born quietly and happily, unaware of all the fuss, around 4:30 pm this afternoon in the backyard. It was snowing (and it was going to snow, as Wallace Stevens had promised), and I knew a snowman was called for. Martin said you can't make anything with this kind of snow (one of those first, wet ones), but I was stubborn. So I got down to making Pepy gently, with care, on the picnic table where snow had gathered in solid amounts. Pepy is a small snowman, but size doesn't matter, and he's such a happy creature that I doubt he minds. I took care to give him a proper nose -- very often this is neglected, and many snowmen must simply be suffering on that account; I tied a deep red ribbon (from "La Vie en Rose" where I had been a few days before) around his neck and made him a bow-tie; opened his eyes with two dark brown beans, widened his face into a smile with a piece of blue plastic; made him embrace the world with two sticks for arms; and gave him an artsy look by placing a jar-lid on his head for a hat... And there he is, small and happy, greeting the whole planet from the picnic table, not knowing anything beyond this winter day...
Once, several years ago, I was on the train from Halifax to Montreal (a trip taken many times and constituting my personal meaning of "Canadian winter"); somewhere still in Nova Scotia we passed through a tiny isolated neighbourhood of a dozen houses, their backyards looking onto the railway. In one of them, a snowman with a big smile and open arms stood facing the train. What a nice way to say "hello," I thought. And never forgot it.
Welcome, to all snowmen entering this winter on tiptoe...
Well, Pepy belongs to December, but isn't part of any of those things. He was born quietly and happily, unaware of all the fuss, around 4:30 pm this afternoon in the backyard. It was snowing (and it was going to snow, as Wallace Stevens had promised), and I knew a snowman was called for. Martin said you can't make anything with this kind of snow (one of those first, wet ones), but I was stubborn. So I got down to making Pepy gently, with care, on the picnic table where snow had gathered in solid amounts. Pepy is a small snowman, but size doesn't matter, and he's such a happy creature that I doubt he minds. I took care to give him a proper nose -- very often this is neglected, and many snowmen must simply be suffering on that account; I tied a deep red ribbon (from "La Vie en Rose" where I had been a few days before) around his neck and made him a bow-tie; opened his eyes with two dark brown beans, widened his face into a smile with a piece of blue plastic; made him embrace the world with two sticks for arms; and gave him an artsy look by placing a jar-lid on his head for a hat... And there he is, small and happy, greeting the whole planet from the picnic table, not knowing anything beyond this winter day...
Once, several years ago, I was on the train from Halifax to Montreal (a trip taken many times and constituting my personal meaning of "Canadian winter"); somewhere still in Nova Scotia we passed through a tiny isolated neighbourhood of a dozen houses, their backyards looking onto the railway. In one of them, a snowman with a big smile and open arms stood facing the train. What a nice way to say "hello," I thought. And never forgot it.
Welcome, to all snowmen entering this winter on tiptoe...
posted by Tijana | 11:16 PM
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