The Great Melt

today's morning pages

This winter has been fucking awful. Deeply dreadful. Remarkably stubborn in its pursuit to celebrate the depths of the bleak and the grey and the dark. It mocked us with its force, it humbled us with its stamina, it shushed us with its cold shoulders.

This winter has been numb fingers, soggy feet, floors painted white with salt stains. It has been fetal in bed, tea for dinner, $120 hydro bills. It has been forgetting what the sidewalk looks like because that grey mush is the new surface of our streets. It has been my pipes freezing, the water stuck halfway out, murdered before it could drop. It has been a twenty minute panic attack trying to park my car but unable to because of the ice and subsequent piles of it. It has been seeing my breath in my kitchen and the olive oil going solid in its glass bottle. It has been public transit behaving like a newborn and flights delayed, canceled, pushed. It has been sleeping, wishing, hoping it all away.

The Stockholm Syndrome effect of it must also be recognized. As fucking awful as these past four months in Toronto have been, they’ve also had their tender, sweet, oh-so happy moments.

This winter has been movie nights with 15 of us piled on couches. It has been Gorp Core at parties. It has been skiing on high peaks and sliding on rivers. It has been my cats sleeping under the blankets to steal my body heat. It has been hugs and mittened hands and wool blankets. It has been crosswords by fireplaces. It has been driving in the northern parts of Ontario and the subsequent pride in doing it by myself. It has been birthday brunches and Guinness at 2 in the afternoon. It has been reading, lots. It has been big dinners with puffer jackets piled up by the front door. It has been waking up before the sun to sit in a bar with my friends and watch a hockey game, standing outside at 9am in the fresh powder with Mitch and a cigarette, feeling so stupidly Canadian.

I read something online recently about how in this country, seasons feel earned. This past week in Toronto, a collective shift has occurred. The forecast promises temperatures in the double digits. I can see the tops of peoples heads because they are not smothered in toques and hoods and scarves. The snow is melting, rapidly. And already that winter feels like a fuzzy thing of the past. My friend Violet said that cold months are like child birth (having not actually gone through it herself, but the point stands). As soon as the anguish of the frost dissipates, you forget why it was so bad to begin with. Hell, let’s do it all again! Bring on baby number two. Bring on December.

Humans, despite everything we’ve done to bury it, are still primitive beings. The proof lies in the repopulating of the streets and parks and public spaces when the sun comes out. We are emerging from our respective fortresses of loafing and comfort. The sense of it feeling earned is evident in this return. The great suffering comes to an end. Now we can bask in the next five months of sun and heat. We can bask in gathering.

And yet, what I think is so - forgive me for saying this but - beautiful about the winter, is that for many, the urge to be around other people still trumps the need to stay inside. People are not afraid to trudge through the snow for a date in a wine bar, a party across town, a movie in the West End (to then stand outside of that theatre because your friend Jamie insists we do so we can all sit together).

This winter was fucking awful. And I cannot wait for spring and then for summer. To run around with my friends and drink park beers and see outdoor shows and bike by the lake and camp in the woods and sweat. I can’t wait to sweat.

I will miss the winter, in that weird part of me that yearns for the discomfort of it. But I can’t wait for us to soak up the motherfucking sun when she comes. Because I think we deserve it.

This winter’s playlist: a slowing down

A small winter archival:

Happy almost spring. Let’s party and touch some grass.