Remnants of the ice storm (December in Virginia)

That day, I awoke to a call from Maureen, my predecessor on the calling tree.

"No school. Ice storm."

I hung up, looked out at the darkness outside. Couldn't go to sleep.

Slowly, the sun crept up. I'd been listening to the clattering on the trees all night, all morning, and the sun began to unveil the ice, to scatter sparks across the landscape.

I put on a sweater, grabbed my complete manual SLR camera, prayed its penchant to double-expose wouldn't kick in. I thought of my love in Syria, the unbearably cold nights, the scorching days. I thought of him trudging up the mountains at night, sitting in his classes, the immediate world at once wholly foreign and utterly familiar.

I took my pictures, and with every snap of the lens thought of moving just one second closer to him, of holding a pearl-string of moments together, both of us in worlds that were entirely ours and entirely strange to us.