4 October 2016

This whole story is the result of a smell. The smell of ice in the air.
It has brought intense memories and projections. It has also awakened a scene that I may have dreamt – or imagined, in a half-sleep state. 

It is beautiful to me. Very white, very quiet and very calm

*

We are in this cabin. It is snowing. Or it has snowed. It is also bright and sunny. If smells of wood and ice. It is very peaceful 

I am outside, walking towards the cabin. I’m wearing slippers, not wise in the snow. But they are completely dry and wonderfully comfy. They are the kind you find in places like Vancouver, sold alongside dreamcatchers in native folklore markets. They are made of soft sheepskin. They are yellow.

I am carrying a jar of lemonade. Incongruous in this place. Have I carried this all the way from the Mediterranean? 

We must be in Canada. But it could be Alaska. Or Greenland. It is somewhere far and simple. There is only this cabin, the snow, the sunshine and the idea of the woods, somewhere – but out of focus.

You are in the cabin. Looking out, from a wooden porch. And there is a mug of coffee somewhere. It is probably your pretty black ceramic mug. There is a wood fire inside the cabin. White smoke rises up, orderly, out of the roof.

We are old. Our hair is black, but we are old. Quite old. Much older than now. Old and happy. Satisfied with a life well lived.

This must be some kind of limbo. But it is not neutral. Why is there snow? Why is it so Northern?

My lemonade brings a touch of the other side. My side. It is bizarre that I am carrying it across a frozen field, in those slippers. But there, in this scene, it feels completely natural. 

I do not know what you are doing, but I think you start laughing. You drink your coffee and I wonder what to do with my jar. 

There is an inside and an outside. I remain outside and I don’t need to fastforward to know I won’t come inside the cabin. I feel good in the fresh air, noticing the aroma of these out-of-place cítrics. Lemons and pines. Sunshine and snow. Slippers in the outdoors.
I don’t know what I am wearing. A nightdress? A gown? Am I fully coated? I really don’t know. It does not matter. I’m not cold.

You remain at a crossroads. Not in, not out. But you exude the indoors. The warmth of a well-stocked fireplace, of cooking, of cosy pans and pots.
I think you wear short sleeves. You may be barefoot. Feet on wooden planks. Wood everywhere around you. And yes, the smell of coffee, of course. Coffee concocted the old clunky way. Probably over a stove, or over that lovely fire. Inside. Across the door I see but cannot cross

Are you laughing at my lemonade? At my silly slippers?

I feel a fox, tiptoeing, somewhere behind me. I don’t turn on time to see her. I think you have. 

I look back towards you but you are no longer there. Nor the cabin.

I’m dissolving in a white fog.

The smell of ice remains strong and intoxicating. Ice. Burning wood. Coffee. Dry wood. Lemon. Sheepskin. Wet wood. I’m inside such smell, fading within this intensely white sensation. Knowing I’m old and happy, content, comfortable. A bit lost, in this nameless limbo, somewhere North, on the way back from a very warm beach somewhere else, far away, South.

You may have crossed into this beach. A bright yellow beach, where I’ll find you next, perhaps walking and wearing slippers this time, perhaps holding on to your coffee. Perhaps younger, perhaps a child or an infant. Like me.

A matter for another smell. And another rêverie.