Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

            I was up before my alarm. Two hours before the consistent chime of my cell phone would ring out into the quiet bedroom. I was wide awake with a scratchy throat and a clogged nose. As my twelve-year-old self would say, “I have the crummies.” Instead of pulling my covers over my head and going back to sleep I threw off my blankets and got out of bed. Twenty tissues later, I was able to breathe a bit better and headed down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.

            One of my roommates was sitting at the kitchen table on her laptop working on a paper when I entered. She asked me how I was and I grumble a response. My throat was burning with every movement that talking was somewhat unbearable. I put the grounds in my coffee maker and stood at the kitchen window waiting for the water to heat. Outside the snow was falling slowly and a fresh batch covered the driveway and the garage roof. Behind me my roommate asked me what my plans were for the day. I replied that I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to work because I was having a bad case of the crummies. She suggested I bundle up, go to Starbucks, and then walk around in the snow. “I know how much you love it,” she had said.

And she was right.

So I shut off the coffee maker, put on several layers of clothing, boots, a hat, mittens, and my warmest jacket and trekked a few blocks to Starbucks. With a hot, fresh cup of coffee in my mitten covered hand I walked in the dull light of the morning feeling a tinge better than I had an hour before. I decided even thought I was sick that I would venture to Baum because I wasn’t sure I would be up for a visit any other time this weekend.

            The park looked just as it had a week earlier. Untouched, clean, and magically white. Maybe someone else had come through before, but the fresh snow would have erased any memory that they had been there. I brushed the snow off the bench facing the crab apple tree and took a seat. The coffee was warm and rich making my throat feel a little better and warmed my hands inside my wet mittens.

            I watched the bench across from where I sat gather with snow until a door across the street closed and a person with their husky took off on a walk. They didn’t cross or enter the parklet, but they walked by. The husky’s nose led the charge into the snow. It made me think about what exactly my own dog would be doing nine hundred miles away in Minnesota. I checked my phone for the temperature in Minneapolis. Negative thirteen. Soda, my dog, was most likely sleeping in her round bed on the floor of the hallway outside my old bedroom. I imagined her there with my in the parklet. How much she would enjoy the tiny space covered in snow. Individual flakes would stick to her black fur and create a sort of white beard on her nose. She would roll around on her back and if I rolled up a snowball and tossed it into the air she would jump and catch it only to shatter the ball into hundreds of snowflakes.

            I didn’t stay long after my imagination drew back into the real world. My coffee cup was empty and my nose was running and I hadn’t thought to bring any tissues. However, I decided that despite the crummies and oncoming cold that the short visit to Baum and the walk home put me in better spirits about spending the rest of the day and weekend in bed sick.