Cold Enough for Snow

by Jessica Au

Maybe it’s good, I said, to stop sometimes and reflect upon the things that have happened, maybe thinking about sadness can actually end up making you happy.

How hurtful would we be when we were both exhausted and sleep-deprived? Would there be enough money? How would we stay fulfilled while at the same time caring so completely for another?

Others said that all the weakest points of our relationship would be laid bare. Others still said that it was a euphoric experience, if only you surrendered yourself to it. And yet really, these thoughtful offerings meant nothing, because it was impossible, ultimately, to compare one life to another, and we always ended up essentially in the same place where we had begun.

I said that I too sometimes did not understand what I saw in galleries, or read in books. Though I understood the pressure of feeling like you had to have a view or opinion, especially one that you could articulate clearly, which usually only came with a certain education.

Sometimes, I looked at a painting, and felt completely nothing. Or if I had a feeling, it was only intuitive, a reaction, nothing that could be expressed in words. It was all right, I said, to simply say if that was so. The main thing was to be open, to listen, to know when and when not to speak.

we were all essentially nothing, just series of sensations and desires, none of it lasting.

The best we could do in this life was to pass through it, like smoke through the branches, suffering, until we either reached a state of nothingness, or else suffered elsewhere.

I thought that if I tried hard enough my effort would become real happiness, and then I would finally be able to stop having these thoughts.

I had the vague thought I had been taught somehow that the best thing was still to be desired, even if you did not desire, even if you did not much like the person who desired you. Where I had learned this, I did not yet know.

My lecturer had said to us once that parents were their children’s fate, not only in the way of the tragedies, but in many other smaller, yet no less powerful ways as well. I knew that if I had a daughter, she would live partly because of the way I had lived, and her memories would be my memories, and she would have no choice in that matter.

I had one vague, exhausted thought that perhaps it was all right not to understand all things, but simply to see and hold them.