Nadia Schimmelman ’25
My eyes burn—
a single patch of snow travels,
chasing an orange ball.
I find my certainty to see the flash of snow running towards me is my dog, Sage—camouflaged, far away—she is as white as milk, proximally the shade of eggnog. Squinting, my dad tells me that blue eyes are more susceptible to being blinded by snow and everything white.
In all I am made up of, I am often consumed by this moment, inadequately grasping onto a reality of a blanket of snow covering everything for miles, and my childhood dog above ground.
Almost every day, I pass this park which I know Sage has imprinted her paws on—every square inch of snowy grass—now melted.
It was hard to distinguish her from the snow, inaccurate now—both because she is not green and not living.
“When is it going to snow in Seattle this year,” I type into my browser while sitting in AP Environmental Science class. Instantaneously yearning, eyes wide open and fingers hovering over the keypad in anticipation. My finger sets down and I am met with the weather forecast: rain. The weight of constant rain on the top of my head, seeping into my thoughts for the next ten days. Disappointment rests on my face as I just learned it is a La Nina year, a colder, wetter year, theoretically meaning more snow.
“Maybe around my birthday in February there will be a greater chance,” I say naively to my seat partner as the boys across from me are tossing M&Ms in each other’s mouths, their laughter breaking my silence.
Insensible to our new set existence.
I now see, when she died last February, we didn’t have a singular snow day that winter.
She was stripped of the chance to hobble to that park one last time, as I clutched my sled in one hand, her leash in the other.
Regardless of what some deem as “fake”, we all are—
repercussions of our own actions.
***
Ten calls to voicemail. I dial again—
My mom’s pacing shadows the carpet, footprints leaving indents back and forth each time she stretches the length of the room.
I switch screens—messages—find my friends. My sister’s location is stagnant at her office in West Hollywood. A red rectangle of inferno displayed ten feet from my face, a white message hovering below: “Southern California Fire, The Worst is Yet to Come.”
People cry.
Animals die.
Thousands of fire hydrants are sucked dry.
In the teeth of the parallel existence where tons of gallons of water flood into silence—where life prospers, despite tons of micro shards of murderous material—land is sweltering with rage.
Palm trees appear to be flame-throwing, one single ember ruining thousands of souls.
***
They are blind to the devastation of life we were given to for free—
like my blue-eyed 10-year-old self,
wanting to play in the snow.