ON IGUANAS AND WEATHER

Bottled here is a taste of spring which arrived in Paris last week. Inside is the sight of flowering trees; the song of birds chirping loudly all day, calling you out to lay in the grass and soak in the warming weather. There are also memories inside, memories I’ll happily share with you of walks along canals lined with Parisians out to soak up the sun––they come out like iguanas, say my friends from Columbia. Can you feel the warmth on your freckling cheeks as you sit outside at a cafe table having doffed your coat? Can you feel your soul lifting and relaxing in the spring air?

Let me apologize beforehand if by writing this I curse someone somewhere, if I bring winter back upon our heads, let it be known I‘m sitting next to the wooden beams that hold up my ceiling and I knock upon them now. Here’s the thing: I can’t believe I’m going a whole year without snow. I’m a bit dazed, I’ve never had a year without snow in my life. I suppose many people would find that wonderful, certainly many who’ve suffered the polar vortexes back in the States, and as a proper North Dakotan I don’t want to seem ungrateful…I just feel…dazed. This winter didn’t rage around me, dominating my life giving me snow days that I treasure as a sweet blessed relief from routine. This winter I was never blinded by white as I looked out the windows of my home. And no one has been able to understand how I’ve been the happiest on the rare nights when the wind howls across the roof that’s two feet from my head. This winter, plus spending a month and a half in the horribly hot Mediterranean last summer really cemented how much I’m a woman from cold northern plains.

Recently I had my two week vacation which I spent traveling Europe. I’d harbored secret little hopes that Germany or at least Denmark would have a little snow. Denmark did have a more bitter cold and less daylight than anything else I’ve experienced this winter but still all I got was some light rain. One night, when there was no rain, we drove out to a beach. It was seven or eight at night, pitch dark with no stars or moon breaking through. The pale sand faded away not far from us into the sound of the Baltic Sea we couldn’t distinguish from the black sky. It was like standing at the edge of a terrifying and beautiful hungry nothing. With everything so dark, would you realize how close you were to waters edge before it was too late? Before it ate you up and sucked you into its lonely vastness? It was as close as I’ll ever get to my dream of returning to earth in 10 billion years to see the blackest sky that envelopes when the stars have drifted too far away for anyone but butterflies to see their shining light. The Baltic Sea at night was possibly better, though, because of the sound of waves rolling invisibly in and out.



PS. Here's an actual photo from my trip to tide you over as I slowly pull myself together.

Corsham, England

deep breaths into paper bags. or staring lazily out windows for hours.

I look back through summer journaling and feel UVB rays again. Which warms me just enough to wonder if there's a way I can embrace winter more fully.

Winter moment #1:
When the sun is setting, there's an hour where I can look out my parlour window at the black, wild limbs of those tall trees across the way backed by ice blue sky and those mountains. It's like I've stepped into one of my grandpa's photos from 1967.


There's so much to do before I graduate.

{sigh}  

moving day, rumbling day

Everyday the Snow Movers come. It takes a while for a small town to wake up from a snow storm that dumps one and a half to two feet of snow (who can tell with all of the drifting and wind-ing). And so every day the Snow Movers come. I hear them rumbling outside, like earth movers moving our white earth from the mountains that have piled up. The streets have been cleared and walls of white line them. Their shoulders are full of lumpy ruts and each parking lot has their respective hill. In drives the Black Cat followed by the dump truck. Shovel, dump, shovel, dump, shovel, dump.
Everybody keeps wondering if the spring will bring more national news flooding because the snow isn't going anywhere, not really, even the snow they drive away will still be in the sound of our voices. It may rearrange itself into new shapely drifts, but it will hang around.

everything all comes out in the winter time

I've forgotten that when everything is white and cold--w & c like it only gets here because you know it goes on for miles, hundreds of miles--you fill up the space with dreams. You can't stop dreaming, how anyone lives without an imagination I've never figured out. Last night as I was laying in bed I thought of the perfect kind of future of filmmaking. It involves lots of things one of which is making blogotheque-take-away-shows-esque videos like this one:

First Aid Kit - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

notice how quietly they cut and follow around. oh, I'll do it, I'll do it, I will.

What I dreamed in sleep was a stream of walking home from school, people being chased by wild animals, me being chased by wild animals, running through the old recital hall where senior citizens were pouring out of their seminar. I hoped they didn't get eaten up by the wild animals. My dreams have been a mash together of the university town I live in and the university town I grew up in. And it's all been winter.

I walked downtown this morning, because my family walks everywhere and because I couldn't face the new parallel parking only zones that they've put in place since the last time I've come back here for a visit. I thought about driving to assimilate with the locals but when have I ever done that one well?
It blizzarded here over Christmas and the town just barely started emerging yesterday. Most of the sidewalks have been snowblowed and are lined with walls of three or four feet of snow. Sometimes when the sidewalk hasn't been cleared you have to climb over a bank of the snow to walk out on the street. You can walk on top of the snow, really, because it packs into dense dense sleeping beasts. Sparkling on top. Sheets of sparkling white. I listened to my iPod as I walked and for once listened to somethings current. I wanted to listen to indie pop to remind myself that the last five years had happened. I love home and am glad to be here but a lot of the things you love have deep deep deep deeply laden cares.

I lenting climbed over that hill three times

photo by mon père

I feel I'm good at keeping an open mind about all of the seasons. Twas not always this way, I grew up in a very chilly winter-ish place, I dare you to dream about how cold it an get. In this place, it pretty much had all four seasons, but mainly two: Summerish and Extra Long Winter. Summerish is frequently known by the name Construction Season because the Winter is so taxing on every building that it all wears out and must be fixed all the time.
In my growing up years, these Winters were very difficult to face (because they were Winters with a capital "W"). I could tell you stories of that one time I walked out in a blizzard. I stood with my face to the wind, the little flakes of blowing snow stung my cheeks and when I went back inside my hair was frozen straight back. You don't forget things like that. Or how about the number of socks it always seems necessary to wear. Or how about that one winter when the breaks on our family car kept freezing and it was first discovered by me as I was backing out of our driveway. Thank heavens there is not traffic there. How about how some mornings the radio tells you how long it will take until your fingers get frost bit and have to be sawed off. And every car drives around with some sand, candy, blankets, candles and other some suches. Winter Survival Kits. I learned from toddler age that if you get stranded in a car in a blizzard you must crack the windows (we were all smart toddlers, the driving age is very young there).

The point being of all of this: Winter was depressing. It was long and unbearable cold. But I've been living away from home for five years now. Very much separated from these netherworld Winters. I go home every other Christmas, and it was my second Christmas back, this was almost two years ago (I was actually in the middle of my year of existential crisis), and I realized, this WINTER is actually an amazing thing. I grew up with frozen hair and sandbags and wind chills and midwest and fiberous people. We layered to beat until we were lumpy old things and that's actually a fantastic thing. If things get tough you deal with it. Isn't that amazing? In our age of leisure, if things get tough you should get the letter H out and find something easier, n'est-ce pas ? Pas.

Anyway, despite the fact that I came home from that Christmas being more depressed than ever to be back here, I decided that all seasons were delightful. And I can revel in Greek mythologies of Persephone.

But this year, it's killing me. Fall has leapt upon us and this year I'm not relishing the colors and the crispiness. I'm suffocating with the closed-up windows and the darkening of the skies. Monday morning my roommate's and my alarm clocks went off at the same time.
"Roommate E, it can't be 7 a.m. can it? It's soo dark," I whined.

But it was seven.

{sigh}

When things get tough I guess I will l'arch de triomphe and sing songs for Persephone.


Stay tuned for tomorrow when I hope to have a little last day of summer treat.