The little shiny parts of life, the ones that only sparkle if they’re held by the right hands in the right light, the ones that usually go unnoticed, I tend to enjoy the most. It’s like a game.How many can I find. How many  do the others walk right past.I loved to collect them. The little box next to my bed sitting in the very center of my nightstand overflowed with my stolen moments. A checkered button, the piece of tinsel from the christmas my grandmother died, and a pressed flower from when I attempted to grow my first garden were peeking out from under the lid.
      I loved winter  because of how everything seemed to glisten, as if mother nature sparkled stardust on top of everything. Living in Minnesota, the snow came down in sheets, a thick blanket protecting the Earth from the frozen temperatures.
      I met Eric in February. On our first date, I insisted we take a walk through his neighborhood. I told him I thought icicles were magic, like they grew from the rooftops just to decorate the dull grey and brown shingles that hung limply from the slanted planes that protected the houses from the cold.
        He c***ed his head to the left as if to catch the words making sure they didn’t fall out of his other ear. He did not laugh, or give me a puzzled look that told me other people did not think such strange things, although I thought they were wonderful. Instead, he paused in his walk and turned into a driveway. Carefully he picked his way to the edge of the house, all along continuing to look up. I followed his glance to find a particularly clear and glazed icicle that stretched as long as my forearm. Gingerly plucking it from the ledge, he walked back and offered it to me. “It is pretty magical, isn’t it?” He grinned.
I kept it in my freezer for seven months until the day I hurt my foot and I needed something to reduce the swelling.