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About Me — Kris Berner
Snow, roads, and stories that keep finding me
Once Upon a November
The most beautiful thing I remember from my childhood is how the snow would shimmer silver in the light of the streetlamps in the evenings.
My mom and I would walk together, leaving deep footprints in the snowdrifts. Clouds of steam would escape from our mouths, and the snow beneath our feet would sparkle like thousands of diamonds. If we looked up, we could see stars in the black sky, twinkling as if in rhythm with the snow.
For me, it was my very own fairy tale.
I grew up in Siberia, in the city of Tomsk, which spent much of the year covered in snow, with long winters and dark evenings. But my childhood wasn’t cold. Probably because there were always people around who knew how to create warmth.
I was closest to my grandmother. Until the day she died, we were bound by a deep and sincere friendship. I always ran to her for comfort when things went wrong. As a child, it seemed to me that there were things I couldn’t get through, but all I had to do was go to my grandmother — and somehow the world would fall back into place.
My mom, on the other hand, did everything she could to keep me believing in miracles and Santa Claus for as long as…
