Svalbard. Snow walk

And then there was that one time that I woke up, and it was snowing. It had started the previous afternoon, the sun slowly but surely growing paler and paler, till it disappeared behind the veil of clouds creeping in – or did it melt into them? I couldn’t tell, I never will. But as I walked back to the hostel, the wind picked up, whistling and howling, blowing the snow up and over the bridge, onto the snowy blanket coating the riverbed hidden underneath. Snow over snow.

The snow started in the evening. It came in light flakes at first: impalpable, noiseless. I stared through the window of the cosy living room, transfixed. After four days straight of sunny weather, the snow. It kept snowing overnight, and the next morning, in the couple of hours I had to spare before the airport bus would pick me up, I walked, again, down to the fjord. Eight times in five days, I’d need so many more of them.

The snow cast a veil of quiet over things all around, made everything sound like a whisper. I walked the stretch from the road to the shore, the one that had grown so familiar so quickly, while the snow grew thicker by the minute. The fjord looked so mysterious, the scenery like out of an old television screen: the whites, the blacks, the greys – so many greys, I didn’t even know there could be so many of them.

I’d loved every second of sun and clear skies I’d been experiencing during the week, the mountain views, the animal sightings (the animals!), white peaks rising out of the blue ocean – I’d loved all of it. But there was something about that snowy morning, something special, something I can’t explain, but that made it different from all the other mornings.

Or maybe it was just that I was about to leave, and I was so sad. All I could think was:’ I’ll be back for all the birds and whales, I’ll be back for all the darkness, I’ll be back in all the seasons, and then I’ll be back again.’

So I looked up, and I said to the fjord: ‘I’m just leaving my heart here, I’ll come check on it next year.’ I spoke in a whisper, but I know it heard me.