When I first moved to New York, I had never truly experienced real snowfall. I had seen snow in California, but nothing like the blizzard swept through on my first winter, covering everything, drowning everything, like a painting, like a picture, like a story. I bundled up in all my gear, put on the biggest boots I owned, and broke open the untouched white crust, making my way down the street, across the road, and into Prospect Park.
It was, tritely, lovely. I made my first snow angel. It was just me and a bunch of kids and families, making snowmen, throwing snowballs. I took out a little camera from my pocket and recorded long videos, talking and crunching through the snow, listening to the silence the snowfall brought with it.
I don't have that video anymore. I likely wiped the SD card clean at some point. I spent days searching through my hard drives, picking apart files.
It's gone, but the loss of the video makes the memory more precious, and I think about it often.
I revisit it, imagery or not, in my head; the crunching beneath my feet, the sting on my skin, the unreal silence.
I still hold out hope that I'll find it one day, but its absence makes me desire it more, and I hope to hold it forever.
