A hearty voice booms out a cheery greeting to someone I can’t see…a conversation continues down the hallway and fades. I can’t know the outcome because I am in the other room. Who spoke? Are there plans for lunch?
January meals; we charge against the wall of grey cold armed with only a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich on rye, crisped in curried butter; a bowl of cold, stinging, oily and vinegary coleslaw and a mug of black coffee and fresh cream, boiled strong.
This is a gut cleansing lunch meted out in bits and bursts and bayonets; heated with friendship and talk of the storm, politics and the playoffs. From the other room I imagine the battlefield…caffeinated steam rising up beyond the window and over the dirty edge of the Genesee river…as we ready ourselves for the final week of January.
This is how I remember feeling most of the time in high school during the winters…an odd combination of terror and invigoration…wanting to remain forever under thick blankets while standing late at night outside when the snow actually crackled and split with cold. Watching blue snow that glittered brightly under the moon…eating scalding hot French fries with mustard as I walked home…not being able to feel my finger tips while my tongue burned…
690 Saint Paul 