winter

i write a lot about winter elsewhere.

cold weather makes my heart lighter and my mind sharper.

i love the crisp autumn of sweden, but this year adelaide city is providing me with a satisfying amount of beautiful foliage. our courtyard is redredred, and the botanic gardens are fifteen shades of yellow. with mysterious yellow fruits that ducks arrange in the stream. i love the dark mornings and dark afternoons of sweden, and the lit up white days of snow. the plooshk plooshk sound of walking through an amount of snow or the ka zrig ka zrig noise of walking on harder snow. i loved the freezing japanese winter, perching in front our scary gas heater after work, letting the flames dry my wet hair after thawing in a deep bath. walking home from the train station in the dark, creating snow creatures to sit on the downward hill hedge. snow-covered spirit houses at the shrine. and i love when clouds are heavy with snow, and hang ominously in the sky, and like the right moment for champagne, releasing little white geometric shapes. i love standing in the graveyard in takayama, watching snow fall toward and melting on gravestones; the leftover mounds of icy white at the temple. i love wearing multiple layers of clothing, disappearing inside a big jacket.


it never really gets cold enough outside in adelaide for a good coatwalk, but what i really look forward to is the really biting inside cold. where getting out of bed becomes a problem. like the coldest day of the year in 2006. where we lack heaters, except the one the four of us, two people and two cats, gather around in the evening. and sitting next to a window typing stiffens your fingers. when the cats burrow under blankets and bedsheets. and all the winter proofs that in europe are often reserved for the outside, can be enjoyed in the comfort of your own chilly home.

i'd like a good digital camera. to document, maybe. mostly just to take beautifully winter lit pictures. i'm saving up for an slr, but i'm also saving up for a lot of other things, too... so it might be a while. i'll just have to experience it all with my senses, without the composition, framing and perspective.