A Beautiful Day

   I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota at around 7am with the beating hospital fluorescent light in my face. Doctors scramble to make sure everything is okay, do I weigh more than I’m supposed to? Too little? Is my mom doing okay? I can’t imagine what that was like since after all I couldn’t remember any of it, I had just been born. Sometimes I think about what I was doing when I was little since I can’t remember my memories from before the age of 3 or 4. My mom said I would spend hours with a wooden train set that she had got me. She says whenever my neighbors would have construction done on their house I’d sit there all day marveling at the size of the machines and what they could do. I didn’t really know what I was thinking since to be honest I don’t think I could sit outside all day and watch construction even if I was paid to but what really took my interest was the snow.

I’d play in the snow whenever it was winter, especially when it was January because that’s when the snow was the thickest and I could make snowballs the easiest. A lot of kids where I live now don’t like playing in the snow which I think is ridiculous, that’s all I’d do during winter, it was Minnesota after all. For how much I loved the snow I was especially annoying when it came to getting my snow gear on. My mom put my gloves on, pulled up my snow pants and after that, I was off. I’d make snow piles for me and my sister to jump into, throwing snowballs at each other and eventually getting our mom to tell us to stop because it would always turn into us fighting in the snow. The snow had a unique dry smell that you couldn’t find anywhere else. The snow mixed with the pine trees that we had planted in our backyard giving it a woody smell. I always wore the same coat outside, it was a green coat with black stripes running down the arms and I’d wear a beanie with the Argentinian flag on it because that’s where my family was from. I’d always refused to wear ear muffs because they really hurt my ears as a kid. After the hours spent in the snow, causing mayhem in the backyard and my eyes stinging from the snowflakes falling on them it was time to go inside. But in fact, the best part of all was going inside for a hot chocolate afterward. As I stepped inside my house and knocked off any excess snow that was left on my boots and removed my snow gear and that’s when I smelt it.  The Nesquik powder mixed with the milk, always with the same crappy metal spoon which I was sure was rusting, but it didn’t matter.  The milk was heated perfectly in the microwave to create the best hot drink possible, and the finishing touch, some marshmallows. The blend of the cool mushy marshmallows with the warm, almost burning hot chocolate created an aroma that couldn’t be replicated, it was the best thing about wintertime.