Winter like that can change your life...

Misty damp night lingers through Botetourt. Molly purrs on the bed next to my ear. I'm sitting in the laundry basket full of dirty clothes under my window. I open it; immediate access to what high school friends call my "fairytale world". The darkness is warmer than you might imagine. Horses beat heavy hoofs against a landscape covered in ice. Amanda meows in the hallway. I let her in the room too. The cats have lived together more than eight years and don't like each other. They live outside, but I let them both in the house, and my room (I'm a sucker). It's impressive really- for not liking each other they manage to purr in unison; Molly now on the carpet below my laundry basket, Amanda in my right ear. Appalachian night to my left.
One of the things I love most about my bed is that I can lay on my back and see the stars. Moon and star gazing is crucial to me and in the winter that view from the comfort of a queen size pillow-top mattress is next to unbeatable... until I open this box of a house to the great outdoors.
Most of my October was spent in the smoke and haze of damp southern Appalachia. Tonight is like those days and nights on the trail.
Poor Virginia.
Botetourt has made futile attempts to represent our season. The winter weather advisories local news anchors have fretted over have only manifested to this so far - less than an inch of ice. No snow since I got off the AT near Bland.
Another manifestation: no cars on the road. A few halogen windows glow from neighbors' plots. There is no speed. There is no agenda. Etzler has slowed to a foot and sleep pace. Glen's horses run and I think about Grayson's wild ponies.
Acoustic twinges out of laptop speakers, songs from a brief affair summer 2006. I think about beating my heart soul and body up and down stairs; four flights of Brazilian Mission. Thirteen? fifteen? times up and down. I remember the music, tears, and longing more than the count. "Is it wrong to not hold on if nothing ever lasts?" my speakers ask.
I lost my passport, and consequently my five year Brazilian visa when I moved out of Allendale. I need to replace it, life without a passport is just not how I want to live =)
This time last year I bathed in a 1920's porcelain tub to counter act the cold of an apartment without heat. I miss that bathtub more than the tiny kitchen where you couldn't open a cupboard, oven, fridge, or backdoor at the same time. I miss it more than the fan that brought Geverstraminer into my life, more than oreos/ Sex and the City/ couch time with Ang.
The chill slick coating slightly shimmering under night's mist brings me back to the ice storm at Emory and Henry freshman year of college. Campus power crashed, and my group of friends skated down 1800 brick sidewalks to the waterhouse to celebrate the first cancellation of classes since Pearl Harbor.
Ice. Glisten. Silent night...
Point? there isn't much of one. Just thoughts.
But I'm wondering, remembering, how much these states of water shape the memories replaying on the midnight of my mind.