Every winter comes, bringing rain and settling among us, deciding to stay for more than four months, cloaking us with its frost and the chill of its winter, living through its beautiful moments, and refreshing our lungs with the essence of its breezes. It transforms our atmosphere into warmth, fur, the smell of roasting chestnuts and oak, and a ribbed tea glass emitting the scent of sage as if it were incense infused with the language of winter… We draw closer to the heater as the wild smell of sprouting beans calls us. We peel an orange or clementine, the rough coat of its skin scattered on the heater releasing that beautiful fragrance, announcing winter and the scent of winter, and we await the forty days of harsh weather, living it alongside its cold stars, stories, proverbs, even its eastern wind. We listen to the sound of rain, rain, rain, rain. We tune into the radio and the television waiting for the coming low pressure from the island in the Mediterranean (Cyprus) or the rolling low from Siberia reaching Turkey and deepening, expecting it with wild winds and soft hail, as my mother says, a bed for snow, and the snow comes named cat ears or Ja'daan. From window to window, we watch the pile-up of snow making sleep elusive, entering into the warmth of memories between one winter and another, with simple heaters and emotions waking from slumber. We remember those who have departed - father, mother, and the blessed people - and the vigorous winters that chased us in our school-age years until we reached home, huddling around the heater, removing those rain-soaked coats and the bags filled with books. With affection, mother would take our fingertips, bring them to the heater, and rub them until the shivering lessened. With hunger overtaking us, we smell the scent of lentil soup or cabbage, the aroma of a hot molokhia dish (from the pot to the throat) as my mother used to say, God rest her soul. In winter nights, special flavors come alive where staying up late, joking, and laughter are sweetened, the smell of Sudanese peanuts filling the air, and the radio and television wait for the eight o'clock news followed by the weather forecaster (Ali Abandah) with his maps and satellite images announcing a new low, and then an Arabic, Jordanian Bedouin, or Egyptian series follows. Satellite technology and satellite dishes hadn't reached us, for we were content with Jordanian television and our Jordanian radio, especially the live broadcast program – oh, how beautiful you are, past winter.
