For Chris

For there is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather, to cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray, to lift one if one totters down, to strengthen whilst one stands.
~ Christina G. Rossetti

No photograph I would make could paint the crisp wintry air, light and heady. It is tinged with eucalyptus and peppermint, an ocean away from the thick, pungent steam of the tropics, its milky golden glow a product of latitude for me, one of smog and density for you. 

I could tell you about the stream of sunlight pouring in my bathroom window, interrupted by curly living tendrils of shower steam writhing gaily, somehow alight. I could describe the horizon, blue haze of another world, hard silhouettes of suburbia made tender by the translucence of the morning.

No image could speak of what it feels like to walk arm in arm down a tree lined street, hedge roses bobbing delicately over picket fences. Our footfalls are an uneven staccato completely out of time with our chatter, and the shine in your eyes from the novelty of it all. You’d love the way our breath turns to cloud as we walk, bundled in scarves and jackets and hats. The sun hard in our eyes, cold on our skin, and warm in our regard for each other.

In the distance, gulls wheel and cry with the crash of surf, raucous spirits of air and water.

I can only hope I have imagined enough for us both.