Letters from the Snow｜Tropical Girl Settles Down in Snow Country

At five o'clock in the morning, 2021 is still hesitant, and it will take 10 hours to arrive in 2022. The blue lights on the Christmas tree flicker slightly, and the silence outside the window makes people in the house not feel the passage of time. This year , most of the time I rely on the computer and the Internet to feel the flow of the world, stay out of it, not involved in it, as if there is no longer a moment to be cheered or filled with righteous indignation.

The turn of 2021-2022 is probably the warmest New Year's Eve after moving to Toronto, the first New Year's Eve without snow .

So I feel a little lonely, and I miss those years of yelling under 101, gibberish at parties in Berlin, and even crying and laughing at the movie theater alone with a group of people watching "The Splendid Time." I miss Aunt Marry too. Two years ago she carefully descended from the steps in front of my house to the snow-covered sidewalk, turned her head and waved to say see you next year, she returned to Ireland, she was in a nursing home because of dementia, and was alone in quarantine. World; I miss Uncle Paul even more. In the winter of 2016, on the first New Year’s Eve after moving to Canada after marriage, members of the entire mother-in-law family went to the birthplace of the family for New Year’s Eve. Uncle Paul was healthy and rosy in a small town in northern Ontario. The tavern loudly announced that he and Aunt Diana had just celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary, and when the 50th anniversary was over, they would invite the whole family to come here for New Years Eve.

But Aunt Diana didn't wait for the 50th anniversary party. It was only 3 days away. Uncle Paul, who had to sit on the sofa desperately because of lung cancer, left. We also couldn't wait for the New Year's Eve appointment. The whole family was just two years old. They were scattered, and it seemed that they could never be reunited again.

I dug out the photos at that time, the photos in the snow.

In 2016, this party was to celebrate my uncle's eldest daughter moving back to Canada from Australia. He generously invited her mother-in-law and all children to Sundridge, a small town near Lake Bernard in the north. Unfamiliar, and the heavy snow in Toronto is also very violent, but the snow in Sundridge is a different mood: the snowflakes are endlessly scattered from the depths of the sky, quietly blending with the white earth, probably because the land is too vast and empty , And few people, the snow is not like the snow lumps piled up on the roadside in the city, the snow here is picturesque, it seems that it has existed between heaven and earth for thousands of years.

Because I just moved to Canada, my family always wants to show me Canada's snow season culture. My husband's cousin arranged a snow carriage ride with four horses and two longboards. About 30 people in the family went to the snow. Lin drove away.

Before getting on the carriage, I observed the difference between the city and the locals. Although Toronto is cold, wearing a fashionable long coat, jeans, and ordinary boots is still fine. Then I came to this place where it is minus 35 degrees in winter. , can only rely on desperately stuffing clothes inside to keep warm; as for my cousin and family living in the local area, they are used to wearing snow clothes and snow pants to travel, and they don’t see how heavy they are, but they are comfortable.

When I entered the forest, I saw the crystallization of snowflakes on the trees. It was so beautiful that I couldn't help but touch it. Only then did I know the importance of snow pants. Snowflakes scattered on everyone's body. The cold ground froze into ice, and the already precarious warmth of the city jacket quickly dissipated, and everyone froze (except the cousin's family).

When the carriage finally passed through the woods, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, rubbed their hands and breathed, and thought about going back to the hotel to have a cup of hot cocoa, but the horse snorted!

The carriage abruptly passed the starting point and started the second lap.

 Just this article to mourn Uncle Paul, I really want to guess with him again who will be the FI champion of the new year.

After the carriage trip, we returned to the lakeside hotel, and while waiting for the New Year's Eve party, I hurriedly wrote this text:

 When she stood on the frozen Bernard Lake in northern Ontario, the girl who grew up on a tropical island never thought about walking on land filled up by snow.  

Since she left her hometown by herself, she slowly migrated from a city to another. She crossed the time zone toward Europa. Then she flew over the Atlantic and ultimately landed in Canada. The more west she stays, the later she gets to celebrate the New Year. When all of her family and friends already made their new year resolution after firework, but she is still in the year before, which is always the moment she feels lonely most.


But now she has family in this foreign and cold country.


There are still 6 hours left. 

The lake has been frozen and the snow isn't stopping. The red flag in the wind is so eye-catching. She is walking on the deep snow and trying hard to get toward the heart of the lake. Behind her, the new snow is covering her footprints. Everything between the sky and earth is silent.  

The old year is done, and the new year is still in the fog. She tries to record what it looks like, but how could she find a more beautiful image to describe this moment when the past is going to cross into the future?

2016,12,31,in Sundridge.

A girl from the south of a tropical island, Rao is full of imagination, and she never imagined that one day she would walk on the snow-covered land like this.

Life continues to go north. Year after year, friends who used to spend their lives together at the New Year's Eve party in Taipei or Berlin and make random wishes all move into the next year, but I am the only one left behind in time, always alone. The most lonely moment when you leave your hometown.

Fortunately, now because of the family, the cold and foreign land of minus 25 degrees is no longer a foreign land.

The snow outside the window was white, and the lake water had long since condensed into ice. In the silence, the Canadian Maple Leaf Flag was particularly eye-catching. I struggled to step on the winter snow to the trestle leading to the center of the lake. The footprints behind me were quickly covered by falling snow.

The dust of the old year has settled, and the new year is still in the fog. Who could have thought of a more beautiful picture to interpret this moment of transition between the old and the new?

Above, I translated this diary inaccurately into Chinese and sent it to everyone as a letter from the snow. In 2022, Happy New Year, please be more happy.

 Receive a Canadian Citizenship Oath Notice on the last day of 2021, and will have a new status in 2022.

Finally, I recommend another article I wrote about Hexue's memory: [Micro] Toddler in Winter Snow

The original text was published in vol., in addition to writing .

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