In the depths of winter,

I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

-Albert Camus

On the hot days, I choose the route to drive to work based on which roads have the most shade.

...

A winter memory: At each x-ray place, we performed the same ritual. Park the car. Turn body to the open door. Take crutches. Swing forward, left foot first. Carry the manila envelope with the original x-rays of the break. Be careful not to bend the envelope.

It was because of my broken foot that we really became friends, I think. Otherwise I would have been able to walk home instead of eating lunch in the cafeteria. I wouldn't have needed you to carry the tray with my pizza panini to a table where we'd sit together, and many times others in the previous class would join us, and we'd laugh.

Apparently this town had more than one x-ray office. Ice slicked the roads that morning and you drove slowly, both hands clenching the wheel, and I was glad to see that although you were an upstate girl and I a downstate one, we were equally nervous about driving in the snow.

'90's rock played on 105.1, and we were just realizing how much we liked the same music. That music would become essential the next year (Scenes and Arms Races, anyone?). Right then it kept us calm on slippery curves. We found something to laugh about, even later, after we parked the car in PER and waited for the bus up the hill, and it was so cold that I couldn't feel my toes and swore they were frostbitten when I took off my socks and wiggled them painstakingly. They were yellow.

It occurred to me that although we hadn't known each other long, you had no trouble being there for me.

...

#203: The Killers, "Human"