Snow Daze

 

It’s snowing. I’m in my room writing about it, reminiscing about Christmases past when the only seasonal white stuff was the whipped cream on Mum’s Boxing Day trifle, or recalling one winter day when I stood with my father in the living room and watched a rare flurry outside the window.

I said, “Isn’t it pretty?”

Dad growled, “I hate snow.”

It’s definitely different when you don’t have to operate in it.

I remember some winters when Mum would do a massive grocery shopping in response to a menacing forecast. Once the kitchen was fully stocked, she would come into the living room and announce, “Now it can snow.” We’d all breathe a sigh of relief, knowing hearty soups and fresh-baked baps were in the works no matter how frightful was the weather outside.

These days, even on the west coast, snow seems an annual inevitability. I don’t remember a recent winter without it; in fact, a major snowfall in the Before Time prompted the Powers That Be to order laptops for all staff during the computer refresh (admin staff typically received desktops) so we could work from home on heavy snow days. The computers were also outfitted with VPN access, and whatever technology was required to keep the system from crashing was boosted to avoid a network catastrophe. (I wonder if our directors had a communal premonition, as it sure came in handy when COVID hit.)

Used to be that snow fell in January or February. Now it seems bent on wrecking Christmas, or at least one’s Christmas vacation, by dumping before festive preparations are complete. This year, the first round fell on November 7, followed almost exactly two weeks later by a second round. I now have a strategy to outwit the winter by either picking up my computer—my rig is left at the office on weekends so it gets its updates on schedule—or keeping it at home if it snows later in the week. It’s much less stressful to be on vacation, though today’s snowfall is interfering with last minute Christmas shopping; not mine, but everyone else’s, and that’s an extra stress on people already teetering on the edge.

My snowmance continues, however, with images of hot tea, fat novels and cozy blankets. Ter suffers more, being prone to cabin fever long before I get restless. She’s never actually declared a loathing for it, but a snow advisory can rattle her until she’s able to restock the pantry. Then she emerges from the kitchen to announce, “Now, it can snow.”

PS, I Love You

Ter loves the fall so much that if she was a Spice Girl, she’d be Pumpkin Spice.

Me, I like pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin custard, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin quick bread (GF, ovvvvv course), and the word itself. If I had a Mini, it would be Flyer orange with a vanity plate reading “PUMKIN”. As for the perennial autumn favourite, ye olde pumpkin spice latte/chai/what-have-you, I confess, it’s not the spice so much as its heralding of the season that brightens my world. Whether I order one or not, and it’s generally not, I’m always happy to welcome it when it comes.

So how was it that I opened my email on August 27 to find advisories from two of my regular coffee haunts proclaiming the return of the pumpkin spice latte? Make no mistake. I wanted the end of Summer 2018 more desperately than anyone, but even then, August 27??? Really, you money-grubbing corporate giants? You couldn’t wait for the Labour Day weekend before launching the harvest on a society still preparing for back to school? Even Mother Nature was in denial about the timing: who wants a warming spice drink when the park bench is hot beneath your butt and you’re still working on your tan? Surely pumpkin spice can wait until the first day of autumn!

And that’s (kind of) my point. The last day of summer, for me, falls not on the equinox in September, but on August 31. It doesn’t even matter if Labour Day happens after my birthday; September 1 is the first day of fall.

It happens almost overnight. Mornings dawn later, cool and crisp, yet the jacket you must wear to work is flung over your arm on the way home. The sky is a vibrant, burnished blue. The sun casts golden light on trees suddenly ablaze with colour. Twilight settles sooner, but gently, accompanied by the first whiff of wood smoke from neighbourhood chimneys. Apples scent the air where no apple trees exist – figure that one out! – and suddenly it’s too cold for your sandals. By the time the equinox arrives around the 22nd, we’re well into the autumnal groove ... but that groove does not, must not, begin until after August 31.

This Wind

It has a personality of its own, this wind. It alternately teases and threatens as it blinds me with my own hair and pushes me along the sidewalk. Even the trees are daunted, shivering at its touch as they never do in spring. They feel its insistent tug on their leaves. They know its mercurial nature, its changeable moods. They know, and so do I.

It smells of autumn, this wind. Crisp and cold, blended echoes of wood smoke and dark moist earth tickle my nose. The stink of seaweed at low tide is equally pungent on a cloudy day. The placid time of green perfume is past. Winter chill rides on this wind.

It has teeth, this wind. I sense its potential to bite as it brushes by my cheek, though when it hints at more than a nip, I have the sense to stay indoors.

It’s a vocal beast, this wind. It whispers through those shivering trees (and what do they hear that makes them tremble so?); it murmurs and moans and even chuckles as it chases the leaves in frantic circles around my feet. Once in a while, it roars. It picks up the ocean and flings it at the shore. It pummels the roof with rain and howls along the street, funnelled between buildings that amplify its voice to epic decibels.

It can also be a friend, this wind. It strokes my hair and kisses my ear, and curls like an amiable arm about my shoulders. I like it best in this congenial humour, when it accepts me as part of Nature’s greater whole. We sit together by the sea, saying nothing. We are aware of each other and content in company—then, without warning, the mood shifts. The sky lowers and the sea grows dark. The waves churn, white-capped and surly, in the rising gale. It’s time to go indoors.

It’s in front of me, this bullying wind. I would hurry, but the playful menace blows me back toward the beach, goading me, pulling at my scarf, tearing at my hair. Seagulls float overhead; they’ve figured out how to work with this wind. So have the little birds. They make themselves into torpedoes and aim themselves for home. What a good idea! I huddle into my coat. I duck my head. I push against the flow and manage to gain the street. It comes from all directions, this crazy-making wind. I can’t see through my hair, I can’t hear past the wailing in my ears, but I persevere and gain the safety of home.

Upstairs, I stand at the window with a mug of tea in my hands. I watch the raging surf and the wild trees, and am reminded of something humbling.

I am so much smaller than this wind.

Wobbly Knees and Wonky Fingers

Now that summer has finally come out of the closet, so have the summer clothes. With those clothes come the perennial questions like: “How does a busty woman hide her bra straps under a sleeveless dress?” or “When do shorts become too-shorts?”

I practice being non-judgmental at the bus stop, but one must wonder what the plaid shorts/tropical print shirt combo was thinking, and I genuinely lament the days of the plain ponytail during the ongoing parade of modern-day “manbuns”. Mostly, though, I admire the sleek young women in flippy dresses and wispy sandals, their bare legs impossibly tanned. When in my 20s, despite the arthritis, my legs were long and straight, and looked pretty darned good in a short skirt. Nowadays, I have knobbly Grinch knees that make it comically ill-advised even to wear leggings, let alone dare a raised hem.

Fortunately, mid-calf still works on me, even if my ankles are a bit thicker and less flexible than they were 30 years ago.

Make no mistake—I don’t envy the gazelles in Gap garb; I had my time in miniskirts and heels. And I’ve grown fond of my crooked knees. After all, they’ve got a ton of mileage on them. My whole body is like that, actually: mid-century modern that’s held up pretty well, all things considered.

For someone who has spent decades at war with her compostable container, this is an impressively mature attitude. I used to fear the ravages of age, blithely unaware that those ravages were happening well in advance of my dotage via the aforementioned arthritis. Perhaps I sensed my golden years might be worse as a result; though I naively imagined that when the RA burned out, my bones would be magically restored to mint condition, I was purely bitter that no one thought to warn me I’d later have to deal with the damage done in my teens. Then there was my well-meaning but misguided notion that all the pre-emptive therapies I could foist upon myself would pre-empt more pain. So much for that.

I’ve always said that I don’t care what it looks like so long as it works, and while I may have been deceiving myself in my youth, this has become my truth in middle age. My recent quest to heal—or at least subdue—the angst of last winter has led me to a more compassionate view of my physical self. Now I can regard my wonky knees and gnarled knuckles with affection. My body has been to war and come out alive. Her swollen joints are a testament to survival, to a challenge met and ultimately defeated. Every day, she gets me from point A to B and beyond, sometimes with a side order of arg and sometimes nary a whimper, but the point is, she gets me where I want to go and will, I hope, continue doing so for as long as she has breath.

Gone are the days of mid-thigh skirts and silly shoes, but that’s okay. I own my scars. I’ve earned them.

Reach Up for the Sunrise

Much as I love the fall, I am no fan of getting up before the sun. Hauling the compostable container from my toasty comfy bed to shuffle down a cold dark hallway, flipping on lights as I go, seems to get harder with each successive weekday morning.

We are now past the fall equinox. The sun rises almost an hour after I do, and about twenty minutes before Ter and I leave for work. On a clear morning, I eat my breakfast while watching a spectacular show. On a clear morning, I watch the sun rise from the Ocean Room window.

It’s a remarkable thing when the gold spark winks above the horizon. Time stops. An unexpected serenity settles over me. I stand transfixed in a gradually spreading pool of warm toffee light. Every cell in my being leans toward it. I unfold like a flower. I raise my arms as if to embrace the glory and bring it to my heart. On a good day, I carry it with me. On a not-so-good day, I cherish the moment and head out the door only to pause on the front stoop and marvel once more at the gift of living across the street from a daily miracle.

The sun doesn’t hurry. It comes on its own schedule, with a majesty unparalleled by any other natural phenomenon, and it happens every single day. People complain about the rain and cloud and fog and cold, and every time I say to them, “The sun is up there; you just can’t see it.”

I get a lot of funny looks, but I also get some smiles.

Almost every culture and society throughout history has associated the sun with their most powerful deity. Being a night owl, I haven’t always understood the attraction. I used to enjoy the sunset more, simply because a different kind of magic—my kind of magic—occurs after the light fades and the noisy, bustling, chaotic world goes to sleep. I used to stay up and write all night, and man, I produced a ton of stuff. I plan to do it again, once I retire from my daytime gig. I love the night. For me, it’s the most mysterious and creative and expansive time of the 24 hour cycle, and if I could stay awake past nine p.m., I’d have that darned novel in the can and be two more ahead!

Until then, however … “Sun, sun, sun, here it comes …”

Halloween Hangover

It’s November first and the world is choked. Mother Nature is throwing fits worthy of a screaming toddler: heavy wind, pounding surf, sporadic bouts of pouring rain—and then a rainbow appears as if to apologize for the tantrum.

Ter comes home from the grocery store. “Boy, is everyone out there cra-bee!” She’s been a little grouchy herself, on the heels of bolting a Bucky’s “Frappula” yesterday. It tastes like a Viva Puff mallow cookie and drops you like a drained corpse when the sugar high wears off. I suspect that a few folks have indulged in the seasonal specialty this weekend, and if they haven’t, the honking horns and crashing carts at the store today must be the result of those “one for you, two for me” trips to the candy bowl last night.

Then there’s the time change. Spring forward, fall back. I got the saying right, this time, but it hasn’t stopped me from feeling disoriented and easily annoyed … though the latter may be attributed to the bowl of caramel/cheese popcorn I devoured with my chocolate tea yesterday afternoon.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Because it’s fun, silly.

Last week, the office held a cake walk that turned into a charity bake sale when no one else in the building turned up to play. I looked at a table piled high with cake, cookies, muffins and more, and was truly grateful that the only gluten-free item was the pineapple upside down cake I’d contributed and had no desire to reclaim. Oops, but there were the mountainous meringues donated by someone who had promised to bake but ran out of time—I’m not a huge meringue fan, but these babies came with blueberry whipped cream and one of my evil office fairies coerced me into splitting one with her (for a good cause), hence the buzz in my ears that began last Thursday.

As Nic would say, Blerg.

Tomorrow, everyone at work will be sick of candy and bakery treats. This will not stop me from refilling the Vader bucket with the last of the Rockets, treacle kisses, lollipops, jelly beans, tiny Mars and Snickers bars that I bought to get us into the Halloween spirit. Neither will it stop me from indulging if I get too stressed—it is the workplace, after all.

I am advised that the Red Cups are back at Starbucks, launched at opening time this morning to get us all into the holiday spirit and onto insulin drips after New Year.

Buckle up, folks. ’Tis the season!

Spring Forward 2.0

The universe has a strange way of changing people’s minds. For most of my life, I have hated, loathed and despised turning the clocks forward each spring. I have deeply resented losing that one precious hour of sleep, taking little comfort in the knowledge that it will be reclaimed come the fall. It jars my biological rhythm, plays havoc with my daily routine, and takes me a full week to regain any sort of equilibrium. For decades, poor Ter has endured my crabbing about it, for I often begin said crabbing well in advance of the appointed date.

Not so this year. This year, something bizarre has happened. I’m looking forward to the time change!

How has this unforeseen miracle occurred? What spectral manifestation has redirected my outlook? Well, quite simply, it’s all about the sunrise.

Since moving to the seaside in 2012, I’ve developed a passion for watching the sun come up over the water. Sometimes I sit on the couch and watch through the window; when the weather warms up, I’ll often get dressed and walk across to park on the beach while the light shifts and spreads over the ocean. It’s never the same show twice. Such occasions are restricted to weekends and days off, however; I’m usually dashing to work when the first rays of gold lance the clouds, so I savour those clear weekend mornings when all is quiet both in and out of the house. Trouble is, the sun and I are presently getting up at the same time. As I tend to sleep later on weekends (who doesn’t?), the sun is already up by the time I wake on a day off.

Drat, thinks I; must I choose between a lie in and the sunrise, and why is it even a choice? I don’t recall it being an issue in recent years … and then I remember: the time change. It hasn’t happened yet, and truth be told, without a glimmer of gloating, Victoria jumped from December to March with the merest nod to our customarily grey and soggy winter. It’s been springtime out west for weeks. No wonder I’m confused by the sunlight streaming down the hall of a Monday morning.

This weekend, my schedule realigns with the sun. I can’t promise to be up and across the street on Sunday ’cause I’m fairly sure my compostable container will still be on standard time, but by next weekend, I’ll have adjusted to the switch and be on the beach first thing Saturday morning.

Daylight Savings Time? Bring it!

Go West, Young Girl!

it's always springtime somewhere

Got an email from Nicole this morning. Poor kid, seems like every time she digs herself out from under the snow, another dump happens, and with three more storms in the forecast for this week, she’s feeling pretty beleaguered by Old Man Winter.

Much as I sympathize with her, I am also grateful. No matter what it’s like in the rest of the country—or the province, for that matter—spring has arrived in Victoria. In fact, passing the park en route to work last Thursday, I blurted to Ter: “Cherry blossoms!”

Nic’s note inspired me to take the Canon on a photographic flânerie this radiant Sunday morning. Big clouds over the water, the sun glowing overhead, and lingering raindrops sparkle like jewels on every bush and blade of grass. The songbirds are doing their collective nut in the flowering trees, and I was lucky to spy the pictured nest amid the aforementioned cherry blossoms. I was even luckier to need no more than my hoodie and a t-shirt on my stroll; I can always tell the imports by the parkas and raingear they bring from the suburbs, not knowing what conditions await them at the ocean.

It’s brisk but mild, a perfect spring day. With 10-15 mms of rain expected to blow in overnight, this gorgeous morning was an unexpected gift. Strained as her tone was, Nic’s note was also a gift, because it made me aware of how truly blessed I am to be here, where the winters last for weeks rather than months and the last snow “storm” we had was in January 2012.

In no way is this post intended as a gloat—there are natural perils out west, as well. Joggers plague every pavement year-round. Purse dogs perennially skitter hither and yon on the same pavements.  A sweater in the morning is too heavy for the afternoon. When it pours, it literally pours with rain. And best of all, we are sitting in a subduction zone that, when the earthquake hits, will likely send Victoria the way of Atlantis.

But not today.

sailboats off the point

Onward and Upward

The first week after holidays is always brutal, but last week was particularly so. My back went out, I paid two visits to the chiropractor, needed a sick day to recover, and finally pulled out of the gloom by Friday. I thought it was me. Turns out that the third week of January is the most depressing week of the calendar year.

Honest. Boy Sister told me so at coffee on Thursday—and it was a revelation.

Think about it. Christmas is over, but the bills are coming in the mail. The cheerful lights have been boxed up for next Christmas, abandoning us to the long, dark winter. New Year’s resolutions are proving too ambitious, so we start to drop them and feel like failures as a result. And I return to work with renewed understanding of why I was so stressed when I left and a plan to regain control of my destiny, but the stressors remain unchanged and my plan requires time to implement so I wind up immobilized—mentally, emotionally and physically.

Truly, I was ready to hang myself mid-week. The string of Philly games probably saved me, despite the dismal duo of shutouts they suffered on Wednesday/Thursday. Then, BS and I spent a few minutes together after coffee with my wee sister, and he told me that we were halfway through the most depressing week of the year.

I immediately felt better. Walking home from the limo stop that same night, I noticed a bunch of snowdrops blooming beneath a garden bush yet glowing with fruitcake lights—an odd juxtaposition that gave me more hope. Then I saw it happening in my own garden: new green buds swelling amid the teeny-tiny blossoms already born. Spring is on the way, I thought with relief. We’ve made it.

I say “we” because poor Ter, who had returned to work on January 5th, suffered more last week than she had the week previous. Yep, the third week sucked, but we’re out of it and on our way to better things. I am also forewarned.

In 2016, I intend to take the whole month off.

Snow!

look reeeeeeeeeeally hard at the roof next door

The Christmas tree went up last Friday. Ter and I worked all day on it—and, to be fair, on the rest of the house, too—and look what happened overnight! Snow!

Our neighbours are night owls. It’s not unusual for their lights to be on through the wee hours, and on Saturday morning at 3:30, I woke up to a glowier-than-normal glow from beyond the curtain. I can usually disregard it, but I’ve been dealing with a hormonal imbalance of late that’s made nighttime less restful than I prefer, so getting back to sleep was a losing battle. Finally I flopped onto my back and glared at the ceiling. Realizing that I could see the ceiling, I thought, Oh, good grief, don’t tell me that they have the bedroom light on next door. Grumble grumble grumble … well, might as well get up and trek to the loo since that’ll become an issue in another hour …

I got up, trudged into the hall, and paused in the doorway to the living room. The window is bare in that room; one day we’ll get around to hanging a curtain but for now we like the light, and during nocturnal traipses you can get an idea of what’s happening weatherwise with a glance. I detoured to investigate if the neighbours really were aiming to vex with an upstairs light and to my amazement, their windows were dark. The glow was actually coming from the thin layer of snow lying on their roof.

Snow! In November! On the first night after we put up the tree!

I forgot about the loo and hoofed it down to the Ocean Room, where a silent blanket of white was forming outside, on the cars, the lawn, the trees, the houses … and in the light of the corner streetlamp, tiny flakes danced and whirled in the playful wind. I was so excited that I almost woke Ter. The luxury of snow on a weekend was surely worth sharing, until I remembered her hair appointment at 11:45. That meant the snow had better be gone before then and if it wasn’t … Okay, I spared her a heart attack and preserved my joy, and true to the nature of a west coast snowfall, it was mostly gone by daylight.

But the little dusting was delicious.

A Turning Season

Fall arrived at 7:29 last night. I went downstairs at 7:15 and spent a few minutes in the garden, inhaling the last breath of summer. The air was muggy yet smelled of wood smoke, the quintessential autumn scent. The big mystery tree out back has been dropping leaves for weeks now, crispy brown things that crunch like potato chips beneath my feet, but the flowers persist in colourful defiance.

I still see roses in bloom. Not many, but most definitely roses. We have a painting by Trisha Romance called “September Rose”; I think of it every time I walk past a garden that smells of Turkish delight..

My whites have been retired, but the pastel tees are still in play. Normally, at this time of year, I’m either underdressed for the morning or overdressed for the afternoon and a jacket is worn on the way to work but draped over my arm on the way home. This month has been unseasonably warm for Victoria—which was good for my niece’s bridal shower last weekend. You need good weather for a garden party and, miraculously, the weather obliged in spades.

Can’t say the same for Calgary—they had 30 cms of snow the week after Labour Day. The grounds crew at Spruce Meadows barely managed to clear the ring in time for the annual Masters tournament; if Ter and I had considered driving out to see the horses this year, we’d have stroked out over the weather beforehand.

The forecast this week is unsettled. Fall is definitely elbowing summer aside, but summer is fighting it. I don’t know why. It’ll be back next year.

Won’t it?

Lilac Time

For me, spring months are defined by flowers. If gardens are ablaze with daffodils, it must be April, if the air is perfumed with roses, it must be June. May is all about lilacs – but you must pay attention or you’ll miss them. Compared to other flowers, they seem to have a very short shelf life.

Fans of purple disagree, but I like white ones the best. The scent is stronger, probably because the blooms waste no effort in pouring out the colour so can apply themselves to enriching their luxurious, licorice-laced perfume. A co-worker of mine has a white lilac tree in her yard and every year, she brings me bunches of blossoms the size of a Beacon Drive-In ice cream cone. My office takes on the heady sweet fragrance of a summer garden, slightly dizzying and somewhat narcotic in its allure. She hasn’t delivered them yet this year, but I bet if I ask her tomorrow, she’ll say she’s watching for the perfect time to pluck them for me. I’m hopeful that they’ll show up this week.

In the meantime, wondering where the lilacs are, I took the Canon on a floral flânerie this weekend and discovered more lilac bushes in the neighbourhood than I thought …

And after trekking through the streets for an hour, I returned home to discover the most glorious specimens are in my own back yard:

Ain’t that the way?

Sock It To Me

Summer means a lot of things to a lot of people. Two months of school holidays. Road trips. Campfire s’mores. Sailing. Being awakened at 3:30 a.m. by annoyingly cheerful birdsong. A quieter pace at the office. Fresh fruit and outdoor markets. Buskers on street corners. Music festivals and baseball games. Mindless romance over meaty high fantasy. Top 40 radio over CBC 2. Comic book superheroes over true life adaptations at the movies. Long sunny days and short starry nights.

Ice cream.

I decided last laundry day that my favourite summer thing is no socks in the wash. Hand-fluffing those suckers between the washer and dryer is time-consuming, occasionally frustrating and, on a cold rainy afternoon, finger-bone-numbing. It’s worse in winter to be sure, but now that spring has arrived, my hankering for a sock-free summer is as acute as a parched throat anticipating lemonade.

Perhaps I should explain.

In gleeful defiance of my envisioning power, the laundry facility is located downstairs from our suite, in its own room off the back deck, ergo the “cold rainy” … er … I want to say complaint, but Ter spent a year of Sunday mornings at a laundromat because things hadn’t worked to plan where we were, so having a washer/dryer on the property where we are is a bonus by comparison, so let’s just call it an minor inconvenience. In summer, it’s great. I visit with the neighbours and play with the house dog, and catch the sun through the open door while I’m sorting the whites from the colours, but in dodgy weather, it’s a tad more challenging because of the gosh-darned socks. They won’t dry properly if I don’t fluff ’em en route from the washer, so precious time is spent handling each cold and clammy item when I’m sure a wiser individual would simply toss them as is into the drum and add an extra dime to the drying time.

Yes, I’m whining. For some reason, sock-fluffing was a pain last week and I began to think fondly of my sandals. Summer won’t be here for another three months, but I see socks becoming toys for the wee bears in the very near future …

Pretty Maids

A girl needn’t be a bride to walk beneath a floral canopy in April. A wedding gown would only clash with the lacy froth adorning the trees along the street—garbed in spring finery, they preen in the sun like pretty maids all in a row.

Don’t get me wrong. I love winter. I love stodgy food, long nights, hockey season, Christmas lights and copious cups of sweet milky black tea; however, by the time spring rolls around, I am ready for the break. Though much of the country is still buried in snow while Victoria is counting flowers in February, I never feel like we’re completely free of winter until April arrives. The winter theme on the blog has needed updating, but I had to wait for sun to coax the trees into bloom. They exploded practically overnight! So last weekend, I took the Canon on a photographic flânerie and was captivated by the apple blossoms bursting on most every branch. They look like they’re covered in whipped cream and the fragrance is nothing short of intoxicating.

The effect won’t last long. April tends to bring gusty winds and sideways showers, often while the sun beams between the cotton clouds, so within a few weeks, pink-and-white snow will collect on the street and be sprinkled over fresh-cut lawns—but that just makes the brief spell of candy-scented glory all the more precious.

Spring is Sprung

Daffy daff. I wondered why this one grew with its back to the sun until I realized that, like a trumpeter heralding the king, its job is to announce the royal presence. A new day, a new season, a new year, a new cycle.

Spring officially arrived in a blustery sunny burst of hail yesterday morning. Victoria weather is always a mixed bag. One minute pouring, the next minute blindingly bright, always windy, then … ye gods, is that hail? The sky holds everything from gulls hanging on the updraft to clouds so dense that light bends around them. Don’t like what you’ve got? Wait five minutes. It will change—and if not, the gods made you adaptable. So adapt.

Hands up, everyone who knows yesterday was also International Happiness Day. Another important date, like Random Acts of Kindness Week, that got no media attention. I only know about it because Ter, despite her present obsession with “Where in the World is Malaysian Air Flight 370?”, has chosen to receive—gasp!—positive (?!) headlines on her FB newsfeed and continually flips me links to keep me inspired. (I am not insensitive to the MA370 mystery, by the way; I’m as baffled and suspicious as anyone, but life must go on for those whose lives can go on.) It’s preaching to the converted, but I voted among the 87% who believe that true success is based on “happiness and wellbeing” rather than “money and stuff”. I will always have what I need and I will always be loved. Excellent starting points from which to build.

Today is “Ru Happiness Day”. Despite slogging through my second cold in two months, I am safe, warm, plugged into a green tea IV, and following my bliss. Yep, that’d be writing. Whether it be blog posts, handwritten notes for a new short story, or trying to keep a young man’s fancy from jumping the gun in the novel, I am doing what I love to do best. Playing with words. Describing pictures. Transcribing conversations. Forgetting to eat. Disregarding the time. I do have the finale of True Detective on tap over lunch, but other than that, spring has sprung, the day is mesmerizing … and my back is to the window, my face bathed in the sickly blue glow of the monitor, and my gyokuro imperial green tea is just about steeped. Watch out, cold symptoms.

Happiness abounds.

Spring Forward

*sigh*

I am reminded of a quote by pirate Captain Jack Sparrow:

“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.”

Every spring, I am faced with Daylight Savings Time. Every spring, I despise it for days in advance and fight it for days afterward. This spring (this weekend, in fact), I have tried to roll with it, but old habits die hard and losing that hour in the morning really does mess with my chemistry, biology and mathematics.

My spirit doesn’t care. My body most definitely does, and my mind is practically lathered with it. Life is confusing enough; why must we confuse it further by playing with the clock? Ours is the only dimension where time matters, and boy, do we make it count. Aside from the almighty dollar, time is the thing that rules us. We’re always watching the clock, scheduling appointments, afraid we’ll be late, forgetting to set the PVR or to watch what we’ve recorded because we can’t find the time, stressing with insomnia because the alarm is going off in two hours and forty-seven minutes … ARG!

So, am I making this a problem? Or am I simply acknowledging that there is a problem? I am never happier than when I lose track of time. My natural rhythm takes over and I eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m sleepy, and write until I’m faint from lack of one or the other.

My intention is always to spend less time being aware of the time, so how do I get past DST?

I guess I’ll just have to give myself time.

Autumn Leaves

“the autumn leaves

drift by my window…”

No, they don’t. Around here, they zip by so fast that you wonder if you saw them at all. Or they get caught on the updraft and spiral skyward like snowflakes only to land light years from their tree of origin. I watched a flock of them on Saturday morning, dancing and spinning with such glee it was hard to grasp that the dance is of their death.

I pictured a tiny fragile leaf, nurtured all summer on sap and sunshine, clinging tenaciously to the branch despite the insistently tugging wind. I imagined the tree whispering, encouraging it to let go. So it does. The wind catches it, carries it high above the branch, above the tree itself, away on a dizzying gust, higher and higher, until it disappears from mortal sight. The bright yellow remains will land on a lawn or a sidewalk, but the leaf itself has moved on, through the clouds and up past the atmosphere to wherever leaves go when they die.

Only they don’t die. I doubt that leaves actually live. They are to a tree what hair is to a human. They grow and are shed, but they don’t feel anything. When a leaf is plucked before its time, it doesn’t say ouch. The tree does. The tree houses the infinite energy, rooted in the earth and tied to an annual cycle that mirrors the greater cycle of all creation.

The blaze of autumn colour is easily misinterpreted as death. It may signal the final hurrah for this round, but it’s far from over for the tree. It will sleep through the winter, then be reborn in the spring, sprouting new leaves, living another cycle … just as we do. We don’t end with our mortal winter. Our bright yellow remains are absorbed back into the earth, but the essence of each individual rises up past the atmosphere to a place beyond mortal vision, to sleep or dream or plan a return visit—but certainly not to die. What would be the point of that? Why would Nature establish a pattern of renewal and rebirth, and exclude us from the party? And how naïve are we to believe that we only get one crack at this mortality gig? I didn’t have to repeat third grade, but I did have to move up through elementary to junior high to high school before I learned enough to equip me for the next phase, and which proved insufficient, by the way. Doing is the best way to learn, so if we don’t learn it in this life, guess what? We repeat grade three. It took me twelve years of school to make adulthood. I reckon it should take at least twelve lifetimes to graduate to whatever comes next in the grand scheme of things.

That’s not to say I can goof off or not do my homework. I doubt there is a test between phases, but I suspect if I don’t pay attention now, I’ll get to the exit interview and go Crap! I was supposed to learn (insert virtue here)! So I’ll have to wedge the forgotten lesson into my course load for the next round.

Autumn is my favourite season of the year, so I’m optimistic that the autumn of my current existence will be the most fun yet. My toes are barely into it, but I know it’s here. My leaves are turning, for one thing, and the sap is starting to run a bit thin. I’m attracted to brighter colours, and bolder about wearing them, too. Now I get the saying, “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.” Vivid colours are better suited to adorn maturity.

Just ask a tree.

A New Look

Whenever my wee sister got bored, she would rearrange the furniture in her bedroom. I’d open the door and immediately be lost. The bed would be here, the chest of drawers there, and she’d be standing at the window, wondering if the bookshelf would fit beneath it. Just as I got used to the arrangement, it would change again. I was amazed at how many options she discovered for placing a twin bed in a 10 x 12 square room. She found more than four, she was that clever.

Yet no matter what the layout, it was always her room. It felt like her, smelled of the incense she burned, reflected her essence in the dog calendar on the wall, the Stephen King paperback on the bedside table, and the jacket hung on the closet doorknob.

I don’t move furniture around, but my preferences change with the season. Now that fall is here, I drink sweet creamy black tea, wear slippers instead of bare feet, and want the house to smell of cinnamon and apples. It’s a good time to change up the setting at Comfortable Rebellion, too, but while the colours change and a new photo reigns, the spirit remains the same: creativity, philosophizing, and with the NHL season about to begin, the occasional rant against the referees. A blanket is recommended for sitting on the verandah, but the welcome is warmer than ever.

Bundle up and stay a while.