The secret of winter

The south wind blew through the hallways of the business and into the chorizo house at the back.

Miguel lowered the blinds of the small store. The smell of loose cheeses and condiments mingled with the cold, and it seemed like a familiar scent, that of nostalgia.

Sitting at a small table near the stove was her granddaughter, Catalina . She was 9 years old and had a storybook in her hands. She turned the pages, but her head was somewhere else.

Catalina thought about the square around the corner. The bench where she used to sit with her friends eating candy was now empty. Winter seemed sad to her.

" Winter isn't sad , baby," Grandpa said in his hoarse voice. "Winter is a beautiful secret."

"Yes," Miguel replied, pouring himself a mate. "The city is painted gray and invites us to look inward... Winter is the season for Grandma's stews and hot chocolate."

Catalina hadn't thought about it. For her, summer was the high life: the packed plaza, the ice cream that melted in her hand, the afternoons that never ended.

"Summer is for outside, for noise," the grandfather continued. In winter, tangos are easy to listen to and read in peace. It's a necessary pause.

That night, before going to sleep, Miguel told Catalina new stories.

Instead of ice princesses , those stories were about the City of Buenos Aires in harsh, record-breaking winters and not so much.

He told her that there had once been frequent frosts in the winter in the City, in addition to exceptional snowfalls . He told her about friends taking refuge in cafes to chat and how people rushed home to wrap up and watch a movie .

Miguel also suggested that Catalina remember the feeling of warming up after walking in the drizzle and how beautiful bare trees look when they draw with their branches against the gray sky.

Catalina closed her eyes. For the first time, the cold outside didn't seem threatening. Winter isn't sad, she thought.

Winter can be an invitation. An opportunity to remember that the best stories emerge even when everything seems frozen.

I like to think of winter as a kind of mood. The streets of Buenos Aires empty out a bit, and the houses become a sanctuary for endless soups and mates .

It's a time for rummaging through libraries and long conversations. And it's that moment when the five o'clock sun turns into a fragile sheet of gold , about to break. A fleeting picture. Another story.

Anyway, I'm team summer (from 31 degrees Celsius onward, of course). But it's undeniable that, even if there aren't any snowflakes in the City, there's a certain magic to its winters every time the warmth of those classic fairy tale moments appears.

A great landscape painter summed up the matter with precision and beauty. He said that the colors of winter are in the imagination.