Craft Time

          Just a few degrees above freezing and somehow it already feels unseasonably warm.  Especially in this thick jacket protected from the harsher wind by the brick alcove that creates the campus above me.  Everyone must notice the change in temperature, because this is the first time I have seen others walking the trail while I visit the garden.  The first are two boys laughing at a conversation I cannot hear while the second is a woman out for a walk with her Yellow Lab.  I don’t think any of them bother to notice me hidden in that open area.  Not that they would necessarily say anything to the girl crouched in the only snow left, had they noticed.

            People are not the only observable difference this temperature change has brought about.  Across campus the snow has mostly disappeared, reduced to a thin layer of slush that contains more dirt than ice.  Except for the portion of the garden I helped to plant.  The garden is still as white as the lawn is green.  What little snow remains on the squishy grass is about as much dirt is visible in the garden.

            I crouch down once again at the edge of the garden, this time to run my fingers through the icy particles left to be called snow.  This snow is much different from the down filling that covered the ground just a week ago.  Now it sounds as though I’m running my fingers through a jar of tiny beads or Styrofoam pebbles.  I grab a chunk in my hand and feel as though I’m picking up a fallen snow cone.  The ice slivers stick together but I can still make out each piece that builds the puzzle. 

            It reminds me of a craft kit I enjoyed growing up.  It came with several bags filled with flakes of all different colors and two aluminum bowls, each a different size, that looked like misshapen pie tins.  The purpose was to arrange the colors in a purposeful pattern, or a confusion of colors, in the tin and then bake it.  The end result was bowl with the look of stained glass.  Even though these individual flecks had melded together, I could still make out the shape of the individual pieces around the edges. 

            Now, the beads I hold are all of a singular clear-white color.  My fist melds the pieces together like the heat of the oven until I have a solid ball as smooth as glass.  Even though I can still make out the individual crystals, the ball is whole and sturdy just as those crafted bowls were able to hold clips and jewelry.  Yet, when I throw it against the brick wall it still shatters just as my favorite creation, a purple-red bowl with no discernable pattern, split into several pieces when it fell from its place on a cluttered shelf.  The only difference is this ball of ice cannot be salvaged by my mother with glue and time.