Esquimaux Kiss

The snow has been falling steadily all day. As evening closes in, I'm wishing I had a ski pulk in which to bundle my son and pull him behind me for a nighttime ski through the woods. The powder on the ground is just perfect for a wintry outing. He could fall asleep to the hoots of owls. The silence of snowfall.

I'm beating eggs. Butter in the pan. Mushrooms browning. I pour the yellow liquid over fungi and sprinkle in parmesan, sea salt, fresh ground pepper. The kettle is boiling and he bubbles over, too, in his jolly jumper. Eyes gazing at trees out the window, he blows raspberries, his face aglow with the strange mix of firelight and the blue of twilight. Little pomegranates for cheeks. My heart feels full.

I'm thinking back to when I was a kid. Winters when drifts reached up to the windows. All those snow days off school. So much white stuff, my brothers would build snowforts the size of castles, big enough to crawl through and disappear into the Arctic regions. One snowy armoury built each end of the garden and iced over. An igloo as the base and a chimney-like stack through which to stand and toss, duck and hide. We each amass our cylindrical weaponry in small piles; peek out and pummel. This is how I develop a good throwing arm.

I pour myself an Ovaltine and my thoughts drift to you and me as kids. Growing up in the same town. Mere blocks apart. Two years, eight months apart. To the day. The same snowfalls fell into our open mouths, melt against tongues, are swept by the arc of arms into wings of angels. Tonight, when I think on those snowforts, it's not war that comes to mind. Instead, I'm wishing I could take your small hand in mine and crawl into one of 'em with you as the children we once were. Huddle together in our snowsuits, look up through frosted chimneys and count stars. Watch our laughter crystallize as our breath freezes mid-air. It's not as if we haven't known the child in each of us, so clearly discernible when we finally meet in our 20s. Visible long before your beautiful mum takes out that old box. Photos spread all over the floor of a living room on Twin Oaks. He's there in his stutter, the stuffing of hands into pockets. She's there in her freckles and the biting of lips.

Tonight, the snowflakes falling so softly make me imagine leaning close, holding our breath. Knees shivering. Frozen faces hovering.  A kind of first kiss. An Inuit Cupid's harpoon flies.

Kunik.

The timid, tremulous touch of noses while we close our eyes, squeeze mittened hands and confuse the howl of the wind for the wolves in our beating hearts...

Music: Igloo (Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack), Karen O and the Kids