that place

My breath swirls in white, pasty clouds whenever I blow out. The air is so cold and I can feel that my fingertips are stiff. A chilly breeze picks up a few strands of my dark brunette hair and then lets them drop again. My pale skin looks even paler than usual.

I used to mind being pale. But not out here. Here I blend in, because almost everything is white.

I can feel a racing thud in my chest. I breathe, in, out, in, out, gently, and my heart slows. Why it was beating so fast in the first place, I do not know.

Tiny snowflakes flutter to the ground. One lands on the tip of my nose and starts melting.

I am not that cold, then, if I can still cause snowflakes to melt. But it feels as though I have no warmth left.

I stare at the frozen lake that is a deep blue color, and wonder if it would the ice would be thick enough to hold me. I throw a rock onto the surface. It cracks and breaks with a shudder, leaving a hole in which the rock sinks.

Probably not.

I brush snow off my bare shoulders and off the top of my head. Most would call me crazy to come out here in only a white, sleeveless dress, but I don't care. It feels like tradition, because every time I come here, I wear the same thing.

 The dead log that I am sitting on is collecting small heaps of snow, on either side of me. The snowfall is getting thicker now, and soon I must go home. 

I do not mind going home so much. I know it is warm and cozy inside, and there will be hot chocolate to drink and books to read and a fire to sit by.

No, I wouldn't mind going home.

But I don't like to leave this place either.

"Hello," I call out, but only to hear the sound of my voice, because there is no sound out here except for the wind, and silence can sometimes be scary.

Time passes. I watch little brown birds come and drink from the hole I made in the lake. I want the birds to whistle or tweet, but they don't, and still, only the wind talks to me. I watch the bare-branched trees shake in a gust of wind.  I watch more snow fall from the vast, white sky.

Eventually I stand. I dust off my dress. I stomp a bit to get my blood flowing so that I am not so stiff and freezing.

I start to walk away.

Away from that place.

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or even next Winter, I will come back.

Because I like that place. Even if I cannot explain why.

But for now, I am going home.

Have you ever had...a certain place that you loved? Somewhere you felt you could just be alone, and be you? Somewhere where your troubles did not follow you?

I have.

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Hey. ♥ I wrote that mostly because I was sparked with the occasional, sudden urge to write.

I enjoyed writing this so much. Drawing and writing and painting are three of my happy places, but I have physical happy places, too. Before my family and I moved, we lived in a house that had a roof that was easy to climb on. And so, since eight or nine, I started climbing up there whenever I was sad, or when the world felt chaotic. I climbed up there and cleared my head, talked to God- and when I climbed down, I felt better.

I could never explain why that place, on top of that roof, brought me peace. But it did.