Snow Falling



My Grandfather Medzadur (photo not dated)

I  put my hands against the cold glass by my bed.  It wasn't a bed really, but a lezhanka under the window.  It was my lezhanka, to the left of my parents's bed, and under the window of our bedroom. The window had one of those huge sills, so if you wanted, you could even stand on the lezhanka and put your elbows on the sill and look out the window.  But on that day, I didn't put my elbows on the sill.  Instead, I stood on the lezhanka and put my hands right on the glass and blew on it.  On the glass.  My breath left a foggy mark on the glass, because it was so cold.  The glass, not my breath.  And the reason it was so cold was that it was winter.  And the reason, I was standing on the lezhanka and looking out, was that it was a really, really big day.  It was winter. And not just winter, but it was big day, because it was (are you sitting down!), because it was the first day of snow.  Snow was coming.  It was falling softly, so softly, that it seemed like the fog of my breath on the glass.  It came down so softly that it was like many little breaths having come together and suddenly covering everything. You could see through it, the fog, but it touched everything.  The snow came and came, and came.  And, I just stood there.  On the lezhanka, with my hands on the glass, with my mouth open.  Watching.