Cold and Light

How to describe the smell of cold? It's mist spilling from a freezer. Fresh, cool waterfalls. Frost in spring.

Extreme cold is dry. Raw nostrils bleed, lungs sting. Skin pales, hair grows brittle, lips chap. For five months, my body has been my heat source. Inside our cabin, my body is creating 45°F worth of heat. Outside, I warm my space 140°F. Living like this has left a deep-set chill in my bones. Cold is exhausting.

I crave warmth against my skin. The sun is a tease, four hours of heatless light. Hot is a feeling I've forgotten. So I’ve come here. I need this.

I step into the water and my belly clenches at the euphoric experience. I am colder than the water. I thaw, melt, dissolve into this natural spring. I lay back and float, all but eyes and nose coddled.

I look up. Steam rises from the water, obscuring the night sky. Next to the water stands a small spruce. Water vapour has settled on it’s branches, freezing to create layers of thin ice, encasing the tree in glass. Long, clear icicles cling to the lower branches, threatening to fall. Higher up is delicately webbed ice, dangling ponderously from tiny frozen needles. Spiders of diamond must weave such beauty. If I shook this tree, it would tinkle like crystal bells.

Dizzy with heat, I climb onto a rock, watching my limbs steam. I hold my hair out, and smile as it freezes in place. I lay down, moon-baking in the frigid air, cooling my skin. It suddenly turns to goose flesh as a soft breeze brushes past. I glance up. The gust has displaced steam, presenting the night sky. It's this northern sky which drew me to Alaska.
Then I see her. Aurora, green wonder of the sky, sending streaks and swirls flitting over mountains, occasional fingers of pale light reaching south.
I lose myself in those lights. I see shifting images, distorting and re-emerging in visible rays of solar wind. It's said these lights play out stories with morals for us to ponder. I wonder if it's telling my story, or tempting me with images of wonders I'm yet to see. I strain to listen. On silent nights the lights crackle. All I can hear is gentle lapping, as the water beckons.

Cold is seeping past my skin. I slide back into the water and am warmly embraced, deliciously pampered. Soon, I will have to leave the springs. Soon, the magical winter will end. Soon, I will have to say goodbye to friends I’ve made.

Soon.

As I soak, the sky returns to mist. But I am content in knowing that beyond the wispy curtain, Lady Aurora dances.