Blog no.30: Snow

Dear solid water fans,

  It's been a year and a half since my last one more or less. Why am I taking time off my busy day to write this you're asking? No? Too bad cause I'm telling you anyways. Well, first of all I'm slightly sick so this time it's not frowned upon to stay inside in a Saturday night (as if that ever stopped me) and second of all, nobody cares so let's move on. Is this one really about snow you'll ask me? The answer is...no. Kinda, but not really. Besides that awful pun, I just wanted to pay homage to one of my favourite bands who I'll be seeing again after 8 years, this time with an older and a bit more appreciative view.

  One thing you have to know about me is that I absolutely love snow. I mean, who doesn't? It's white and fluffy and you can hurl it at people without risking assault charges. It's rare where I'm from which makes it's few appearances special, kinda like whenever Janice came on Friends: you appreciated her at first but then you just wanted to curl her into a ball and throw her on stuff. I become such a little kid when I see some snow that I want to punch myself in the face.

  The most underappreciated part of snowfall is the aftermath. We didn't get many (if any) snowfalls back in Cyprus but I've been fortunate enough to move to a city with a slightly more favourable climate, so a few winters in it finally happened. It felt just like walking into a teenager boy's bedroom in the 00's after his family switched to a DSL internet connection: everything was covered in white. Now, Athens is not the prettiest nor the cleanest city, but I love it nonetheless. After a snowfall though, all the ugliness and trash and imperfections are covered by a deep layer of fluffy, white snow. I mean it's still got some trash underneath, but don't we all? Everything looks so clean, calm, perfect, you feel a bit bad disturbing it at first so you just sit and appreciate it for a bit. You then make huge balls of it, stack it a meter high, stick a carrot and some buttons on it, and you give it a name to make sure that it  becomes a person before it dies a miserable death the following morning. 

  So this blog isn't really about snow, shocker I know, but rather about clean slates. It's something all of us need at one point of our life or another, some in multiple points of their lives. Some do it every year, but they call it "New Year's Eve", a day to drink our livers off and make resolutions that last shorter than that one carton of milk in my fridge. I'm not very fond of New Year's anymore, I haven't been for the last few years due them being regularly shitty for me, but I've decided to take the less cynical approach this time around and accept that the day does serve a purpose, just like any other arbitrary holiday. 

  However silly might seem that we celebrate another year around the sun, when in reality nothing changes but the dates on our calendars, it's still a nice checkpoint to which you can add things that have changed for you. You don't see anyone doing "Best movies of March 2019 - February 2020", it just doesn't make sense. A year is a pretty decent time-frame to see how you've fared, and I've learned to appreciate that in itself, even though I'm still rather skeptical about paying a small fortune to go out for drinks with my friends as opposed to any other day of the year. 

  For me it's been pretty damn decent. I've learned that it's okay to feel bad sometimes, and it's more than okay to take time to relax and do nice things for yourself, more commonly known as "Treat yo'self". I've lowered the number of times I have to go through exams in my damn university to single digits, I've had a kick-ass girlfriend for the whole year and I've finally moved from my lovely apartment, among other things. I was expecting the moving to be more, well, moving for me but I was surprised how easy it was for me to let go. I made almost 7 years worth of memories in that apartment, a few bad ones but mostly great, though I guess after taking a whole damn month to clean it, sell my furniture, move all my stuff to another apartment and deal with the shitty-ass owner of the house and his snobby wife, it felt cathartic seeing it for the last time, placing the key on the counter and imagining Jefferson Airplane's "Embryonic journey" playing in the background. It felt like turning a page, like a New Year's of sorts. It felt like fresh snow on a cold winter day. A clean slate. 

  It's always fun reminiscing times of the past with joy, even times that didn't seem so joyous the first time around. When I was in the Netherlands visiting my sister a few years ago on New Year's Eve, sick to my core and sitting by myself on the attic, watching the fireworks by the window I felt kinda sad, like I was feeling pity for myself. Looking back though, all I remember is drinking beers with my sister, binge watching Avatar the last airbender under some blankets and playing video games with a friend of mine, and that's a damn fine way to spend your Christmas, if you ask me. Bad memories tend to fade, good memories stay with you forever. If you're stuck in the past you'll never be able to create new ones so, like I did on my last day of moving, tear that wall down and move on. It was plaster, but still.

P.S. Since I made a point about top 10 lists of the year, but I haven't seen 10 films worthy of my top 10 list, here's my top 9. 

9. Booksmart
8. I lost my body
7. Joker
6. Dolemite is my name
5. Klaus
4. Ad Astra
3. Once upon a time... in Hollywood
2. Marriage Story
1. Parasite

2021 Edit: