Revisiting the mountains of my chldhood

Temporarily towering
St. Laurent, QC
February 2019
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We're near the desolate edge of a nearly empty parking lot in the burbs, and as is often the case these days we're transitioning from one place to the next. An around-the-clock shift at the hospital with my father-in-law behind us. FIL's empty condo ahead of us, promising a night of sifting through financial documents and trying to make sense of his affairs.

This is what living nightmares look like, except you eventually wake up from bad dreams. Not here, not now.

We're walking back to the car after dinner when that familiar jolt hits me. I see something. Towering piles of snow thanks to the severe winter that's blasted this city for months. An apocalyptic moonscape, like when we were in elementary school, climbing the mountains after a major storm, kings and queens of our childhood domain. Because that's what stupid kids like us did despite the distant pleas of the well-meaning - but powerless - lunch moms.

Adult me doesn't climb snow mountains anymore. (OK, not often.) But they still fascinate me. These, in particular, almost feel real, like an alpine range, the combination of craggy snow and severe parking lot lighting against a damp, cold, black night making them feel more substantive than a wantonly dumped pile of white stuff.

And for a moment, I seal out the hospital and the condo and the relentless cacophony of real-life things we've seen and heard and smelled and felt and just allow the vision in front of me to fill my head. My wife, as she so often does, patiently indulges me as I wander closer to the pile and size it up

In the end, I get 5 minutes of respite through the lens before I return to the car and we continue our journey to our not-quite-home. But the photo here endures as a literally frozen - and figuratively frozen-in-time - moment amid so many moments I wish I could forget. If only we could return to those school yard mountains for recess. If only they were more than mere memories.

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