Fire and Ice

"I'm totally getting a hot cocoa," I said, glancing out at the trees struggling against the mighty breath of the wind. "Seriously though, it's FREEZING out!"
Hannah and Giulia giggled at my amazement with the weather. As we paid for our comforting cocoa we found seats near the huge fireplace. I looked at the glowing wood, nostalgically musing over my experience with such majestically hot flames.
Every summer solstice, the Waldorf school held a bonfire. I played at the beach all day, thrashing around in the white water, or daring to swim out past the breaking point. After hours of being in the ocean, I ran back to shore, lips blue, and fingers wrinkled. I could see the six month old Christmas trees that people had saved especially for St. John's bonfire. As dusk seeped through the sky, and the sun began to trickle below the sea, magnificent colors of lilac and pink permeated above us. At this point the pallets and the trees were piled into the pit. Fierce flames burst and crackled as my mom handed me a tofu pup to roast on an unwound hanger.
After all the kids had finished eagerly eating their fire cooked food, we sprinted over to the
lifeguard tower to play hide and seek. "Ready or not, hear I come!"
Finally, time for s'mores! Running back over to the fire, as fast as possible I gathered the ingredients necessary to cook my marshmallow over the dwindling flames, slowly fading into embers. The crimson beauty swam before my mesmerized eyes, as my marshmallow slowly took light. Under the trance of the magical fire, I failed to notice my suffering marshmallow, engulfed in a blinding array of orange and gold. "Ah!" I blew and blew until my scorched dessert was rescued. I glanced around as all my friends toasted their marshmallows with patient diligence, glazing them to a perfect golden brown crisp. I scowed down at my own; black and unrecognizable. Oh well, I was used to eating burnt s'mores. It happened every time. I always wanted a perfectly toasted marshmallow, but somehow, every time I crouched on the sand, and held the hanger over the fire, the bright liveliness of the flames always distracted me from my goal...
Sitting in front of the grand fireplace in the cafeteria, I found myself again, pensively staring into the flames, lost in memories of my childhood. Suddenly someone startled me out of my thoughts, yelling "Snow! Snow! It's Snowing!"
No frieking way. SNOW??? At this, I sprinted away from the fire to go peak out the window. I felt like I was in a post card. Little white flakes bustled about the air, then gracefully settled on the glistening green grass. I smiled to myself, as I gazed out at the stormy sky. How different I felt. Fire had always meant, summertime, the beach, s'mores, and tofu pups. Now, in my new home in the north-west, fire meant winter, hot cocoa, and, although it's still hard for me to believe-snow.