Winter is coming

This weekend Lotus Land welcomed its first big snowfall of the year.

Mister M and I awoke on Saturday morning to this:

It’s very rare for our snow to stick, let alone to remain pristine and, well, white. Usually the whole thing goes sideways within the first minutes of the snowfall – dirty, grey-brown slush coagulates along the sides of roads, working its way into the gutters, and into the insides of your boots.

It’s like the tar they used to show in anti-cigarette advertisements.

Where once there was symbol of health, now rests nothing but a build up of toxic sludge and disappointment.

It oozes.

Erm. I seem to have gotten off track, and quickly at that.

So sorry to have veered off into such dark territory – it won’t happen again.

So, owards now, to much better and brighter thoughts!

Like this?

Oh yeah. Just like that.

One thing that is hilarious (albeit a little exhausting) about our annual snowfall, is that people here on the west coast of Canada often have a hard time figuring out what exactly to do with themselves once white stuff starts falling from the sky.

Some forget how to operate motor vehicles. Some walk around in bare legs and umbrellas, as if stuck in some mind- bending quagmire of confusion. Some immediately revert to cherished childhood pursuits – building snowmen, throwing snowballs, or sledding down the nearest, and steepest hill they can find.

For me – it’s all about the walks.

I want to walk among trees, each looking as if the snow has set it alight. Glimmering in the sunlight, long icicles frozen on outstretched branches, that reflect a thousand crystal prisms – like dancers.

A thousand colours changing.

A thousand thoughts reflecting.

M and I do our best talking as we walk. We mull over our future, our plans, our goals, our fears. We talk about our jobs, the books we’re reading, the t.v. shows we’re watching.

We laugh about our cat.

We dissect the politics of our nation, our province, our city.

We debate the divergent discourses of neighbours to the south.

We reminisce about England.

We plan for the future.

Sometimes it’s so crazy to think they we are not the eighteen year old girl, and twenty year old boy we were when we first met.

(We used to run from Marc’s apartment (that was very soon to become our apartment) down to the Blockbuster at 11:50 at night, in our pyjamas, racing to the doors before they closed for the evening, and rent Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and buy Oh Henry ice cream.)

But as soon as I start to think along those lines, it becomes so painfully obvious that we still are in fact those two people­ – we are those two weirdos, flying through the winter’s night in their flannel, and frost freckled faces.

Those two people had the same dreams, and hopes, and goals, and fears as we do today– sure, some may have changed, some may have gone, some may have grown, and some may be exactly the same.

It’s just that, at that time, we didn’t know how much we’d want to figure it all out together.

And so we continue to walk. Through the winter wonderland that is currently our home.

(Although I need to be much more careful, what with how slippery the road become as the temperature slides lower and lower before zero. The beautiful, blue bruise blooming on my right leg is a reminder of that.)

It’s supposed to drop to minus 13 tonight, much colder than I can remember it being for quite some time.

The fire is roaring, the cat is catting, and I sit, thinking about my future, yes, but mostly the last twenty pages of The Hunger Games.

You see, I finally got my greedy mitts on the last two books, and blew through book two and half of book three yesterday afternoon.

I read through my lunch break today and now, but for a few pages, I will finally find out how the war for Panem will end.

Sometimes the conclusion of a make believe world is just what the doctor ordered.

And if not – walk it off..