By Chaya Silberstein

The day I officially became a Philadelphian, many of you stayed home and I don’t blame you. It was the coldest New Year’s Day in a hundred years. I would have watched the Mummer’s Parade on TV too, if I had remembered how cold it could truly get.

Originally from Brooklyn, I lived in Los Angeles for six years and only moved to the Philadelphia area, last December. Palm tree weather still coated the frontal region of my brain. For good reason! Who wants to remember cold fingers and toes?

Then, the man standing three rows up on the bleachers in front of me, made a pronouncement that made the toe-numbing cold worth it.

He said, “If you’re out today, you’re a Philadelphian.” Drumroll.

And the drums rolled and the horned instruments played, some had caught colds, but nevertheless the 2018 Mummers Parade was spectacular! Feathers, fur, frills, confetti. Like a child that cares more about the wrapping than the present, I gazed into the sky and watched colored paper dance to a backdrop of office building windows reflecting themselves. The crowd danced too. Stop and you freeze.

A highlight was the B. Love Strutters Brigade from Chester County that came in second in the Comic Division. A spinoff of The Sound of Music, I was filled with childhood delight as they marched by.

Due to the freezing temperatures, my camera chose to die at that moment, so I only caught their retreating backs but that had an uncanny way of placing me further into the experience.

Imagine how the fictionalized Von Trapp family must have felt as they escaped into the Alps with their musical instruments!

Camaraderie abounded as it tends to in extreme conditions. A woman wearing a firefighter’s full “turnout gear” that she had begged her cousin to lend her, passed on the generosity when she handed me feet warmers to place in my boots. Like many out there, that day, she had made the parade tradition and had been attending with her partner for the past twenty years.

“One year, we even did the whole thing and marched,” she said, “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

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Chaya Silberstein is a poet and writer who currently lives in Philadelphia. She is the co-author of The Echo of Dreams (2012) and is featured in Just A Little More Time Anthology (2017). She regularly contributes to The Pen Name and is an editor for Quantum-Touch. You can find her at eatingpoetry.com and follow her on instagram @eating.poetry.