An American Wonderland
It was a cold morning when I heard my 6:30 AM alarm ring. I carefully jumped down from my bunk bed not to wake up my little brother and tip toed in the ice-cold floor to the bathroom. Since we lived in a one-bathroom apartment I was usually the first up to take a shower before school. I didn’t mind it, I got to enjoy more time with limited hot water and not run the risk of having to take a cold shower.
As I finished my shower and left the bathroom full of steam my siblings waited outside arguing over who was next. It was at this moment when my mom walked into the hallway where we were congregating to give us the news. School had just called to let us know that it was to be a snow day. “Snow day?” we asked, baffled at what that meant. Our mom explained that it had snowed too much last night and they had to cancel school.
We immediately ran to the window in the living room to see what she meant. Fluffy and white snow filled our driveway, covering most of the bushes and decorating the neighborhood trees. All of us siblings, three “Brasileiros” raised in the tropical weather of the Brazilian coast who had never experienced a real winter, sat there for a few minutes, staring at the sunshine reflecting on the glistening snow. Apartment windows used to mean countless hours watching the hypnotizing movements of the waves hitting the beach where we could feel the gentle ocean breeze carrying refreshing water droplets into our faces. Now, as we stared outside, a cold aura emanated from the window and the usually busy Orange street was a serene paradise, filled with a calming silence. That day we shoveled the driveway, sledded in the nearby park, and drank hot chocolate my mom made us – my very first mesmerizing, quiet, and beautiful American winter wonderland.
Tom Ko was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in Brazil before moving to high school in the United States. He’s currently a Ph. D. Candidate in Chemistry.