It feels like winter will never end. I am taking out my exhaustion from preparing for final exams and working too much on my hatred of the snow and below freezing temperatures.
Last night I burst into the kitchen through the back door, and proclaimed to my roommates: "This year, this is it. Winter isn't going to end. The snow will never melt. It will never stop snowing."
The stared at me blankly, forkfuls of food paused enroute to mouth, conversation interrupted. I continued:
"I'm serious, guys. It's so cold and windy and dark out there that I thought my head was going to explode. My ears ache. I'm done with this."
Robyn spoke first. He said, "Are we talking about the same thing here? Today was gorgeous. It was sunny and crystal clear. The roads were bare."
Kristyn chimed in with "Of course Spring will come, eventually. It has to. I promise you it will come soon. Next week is supposed to be above zero!"
For some reason though, I couldn't believe her. We got our first snowfall in early October this year, and I want to see something green and growing. Instead it is filthy black ice and blankets of snow. In April. I just can't take it much longer.

24

Hot summer, with mosquitoes thick in the red gold air of late afternoon. Everything is heavy, languid, weighed down with residual heat and lazy words.
She sat on the front steps, getting the last of the sun from the West coming in between the neighbours houses. It lay like a blanket over her bare legs and arms, and who wouldn't revel in that feeling? She had a cold beer in one hand, a book in the other, and her dog at her feet. Happiness, deep and wide, consumed her belly.
But there was that niggling hole. That little worm of restlessness, of discontent. It wasn't enough. What she had, who she was, where she was headed- it was not what she needed, what she desired. How to put it into words- when she was Good, she was very, very Good.
For a while, at least. When she was doing everything she was supposed to, had all her relationships lined up in a row, all her accomplishments polished, all her kind-hearted selfless acts acted, she was joyful for a time. But. She became bored. The restlessness increased, her pacing up and down of hallways, kitchens, streets, became faster and faster, her sense of control seemed to slip away, and soon she was like a frantic dog locked in a car- barking nonsensically, panting, frantic, afraid.
When she was Bad, she was Horrid.
And so she would run. She would go out with friends and sprint ahead, jump on things, jump off things, smash plates and bottles, flirt and tease and laugh inappropriately. All the things she had formerly prioritized as important she would analyze and come to the conclusion that in the long scheme of things they really didn't matter. What mattered now was movement, and connections, and stretching yourself until you collapsed, and stretching those connections until they snapped, exhausted, sweating, crying, laughing, shouting, whispering. Enough with stillness, enough with calm, enough with peace.
Enough of sitting in one place.
But.
Sitting in the sun, on a early summer evening, she was happy. And for then, and for now, that was enough.

23

"I was 21 years when I wrote this song.
  23 now, but I won't be for long.

  Time hurries on,
  And the leaves that are green turn to brown."
(Leaves That Are Green, Simon & Garfunkel)

I used to get anxious when I thought about the future. I remember sitting on a swing set with my cousin Jacq at the end of a long, hot summer day, and talking about our fears of entering grade 7- the year before we entered high school. I think I was nervous to have a locker, and to find my classes, and to be in a school with children as old as 18- who I guess aren't really children anymore, when you reach the legal age of voting.
But then it just naturally happened. One day I was going to the new school, and I was with my friends and a bunch of kids I didn't know, and everything went smoothly. The transition was easy.
The same thing happened with university. One year I had no idea what to expect. I didn't have a clue what a "major" or a "minor" was, or why I had to "declare" one, or why the Engineers had such a nice new building and I was stuck in a 1970's nightmare with asbestos in the walls. Then, about half way through my third week, everything fell into place. This was fun. I could talk to strangers, make new friends, learn such fascinating subjects.

Right now I feel the same way about the future. I have no idea how I am supposed to deal with my taxes, or find a fulfilling career, or even push out babies one day. But if I have gained any wisdom whatsoever from my past, it should be enough to know that when the time comes about for these things, I will find the strength and the courage and the humour to navigate them with grace and humility.

I'm turning 24 soon. People now make fun of us in our early 20's. You know nothing, they scoff. You are still barely formed human beings. You have no idea who you are and what you want. And I do, and don't, agree with them. Yes, maybe I am still learning new things about myself every other week, and yes, maybe I make mistakes more than you do. I still have a long way to go to figure out everything about myself and the world. But, I know what I want.

I want to be near to my biological family, and my chosen family. Maybe this doesn't mean geographical location, but that's not all that nearness entails. Family and my closest friends are the most important things in my life. When I am on my deathbed, the classes I took and the jobs I held and the money I hoarded will mean nothing. It boils down to love, plain and simple. Giving it, and receiving it.

I want to give joy to those around me. More superficially, I want a home full of flowers and laughter. I want to see more of the world, and discover how everyone is the same, and yet unique. I want to crusade for peace. I want to not stand idly by when wrongs are being done. I want to find the strength to do the right thing even when it hurts me.

I want to stay up all night sometimes, eating cake and drinking beer with my friends. I want to see more sunrises. I want to slurp noodles from a bowl of pho and laugh at the noise. I want to be held tight at night, and I want to be happy with being alone at night too.

I want to stretch my body to its limits. I want to feel whole in my skin. I want to feel every molecule of my being tingle when I jump off the dock after laying in the hot sun into the navy depths of the lake. I want to sail around some PNG islands and become tanned from the sun, and strong from hard work, and bleached from the salt water.

"I've discovered that there are only ever two reasons why anybody does anything: there is fear, and there is love." (Sister Julienne, Call the Midwife)  I want to do things out of love, not fear. I want to have children, and I want to not be frightened by the amount of love I feel towards them.

The Bright Side

Guys, this is a short, darkly humorous video that one of my best friends (and roommate) (who is also super talented) (and funny) (and so sweet and generous) (and girls, he is siiiingle!) and his buddies Josh and Kev put together for this Edmonton comedy challenge, just for fun. I did the make-up for it! Plus I'm in it! Watch it! Like it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nhZuiW5dMU&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-nhZuiW5dMU

Energy

Too much energy. It's coming out of my fingertips, streaming out of my hair, shooting out of my toes and ears and eyes and twitching back and forth. I clean my room, do a load of laundry, get distracted by organizing piles of my books and papers and then switch to trying to study- but before I make a cup of tea. And eat a cucumber. And then start cleaning the kitchen, and the laundry is done so oh! Hang it up to dry.
Sometimes I miss the time when I lacked energy. When things were slower, calmer, more easily categorized and finished. I had time to think and think and think because all I had was time- time was maple syrup, time was slippery and sticky and I could wade through it as if in a dream.

Now I talk too much. I am still the shy, quiet child I used to be- except now, sometimes, my mouth opens and words pour out in a fast, jumbled stream and I can't stop it, they just keep coming. When I recognize it happening I tell myself to stop, to breathe, but then I am in the bathroom- how did I get here?- and I am talking out loud to no one but myself, saying breathe, breathe, breathe to the shower gel and the loofah and the green tiled floor. Then I can't help but laugh at myself for sounding like a crazy person telling herself to breathe, but my laugh is too loud and it makes it even more crazy, and I find that even more funny and I laugh longer, echoes slamming off the white walls and the dark skylight.

Saturday Snow

Last Saturday night, as the grungy dusk faded to dark, the drizzling rain turned to snow. It was the most magical snow I had seen all winter- giant flakes wafting down, half-melted before they stuck to your hair. Because there was no wind they didn't blow sideways, they didn't swirl energetically, they didn't attack like an icy menace. They were very in-the-moment snowflakes, if that can be a thing.
I was walking fast along a deserted street downtown, and my friend and I (though both mature adults most of the time, I swear) couldn't stop laughing when we looked at each other with our fluffy white, quickly sopping wet hair. It was like walking through one of those plastic beaded curtains that you used to put over your doorway, that's how physical each flake felt when it hit you.

I used to have a beaded doorway thing, and so did my brother and sister. Dani and I had flowers, and Joel had round smiley faces. I remember that my friend Allison had one, and it made me want one so badly, and I had to beg and beg my parents to let me get one, which they were reluctant to do because they thought (and looking back, rightly so) that they looked tacky. We drove to Chinatown to get them, I think, and bought them in some grungy, fluorescent-lit toy store. The novelty of having to push through strands of plastic flowers every time I wanted to enter my bedroom obviously faded quickly, and soon the 3 of us got inventive in ways of tying them back out of the way, or making "curtains" out of dividing the strands into two bundles. When we sold our house in White Rock and came to Edmonton, they mysteriously never survived the move. Thank goodness.

Darin

Darin was American, and had been in the Navy, or the Army, I can't remember which, and he liked to tell stories about torture and seeing people die. We'd be loading our vans with trays of sandwiches, vegetables, fruit, and dessert, for the afternoon delivery run, and I remember catching snippets of his stories as I ran in and out of the basement or the back door of the restaurant. The Serbs and the Croats, I think. The Croatian war- I remember this, because my sister D was going to go backpacking around Croatia with a friend and he thought that was an awful idea, too dangerous and wild for 2 young girls.

Darin was large, with red hair and beard, pockmarked skin, and kind eyes. He was loud and crass, but he also would go out of his way to help me with my early morning food runs- making sure my pots of coffee were filled and organized, writing easy directions on addresses that weren't common sense to find. Usually in the early mornings it was just the two of us anyway, and I think he appreciated me being around.

When he started telling his war stories, I would try to let him know when they were getting too gory for me. Soon enough, instead of tales of battle and blood, he would open up to me about his personal life: his family, the love-of-his-life who he had helped through rehab for drug and alcohol abuse more than once but was married to someone else now, his plans to become a history teacher.

It was near the end of the summer when Darin's cellphone was stolen. It was slow and hot; the dumpster reeked after only hours of being emptied, the wasps were particularly bad around the doorways, and everything felt covered in a slick, sticky skin of sweat and oil and fruit juice. I was breaking out with more acne than I had ever had in my entire teenagehood from working late afternoons in the grease-filled air of the kitchen after deliveries- chopping carrots, peeling potatoes, patiently creating hor d'oeuvres, anything anyone needed help with. My two new best friends were K and R who had the same tasks as me, and because we spent every day at work together we spent every night together too, having wild adventures, while my old, more conservative friends were off travelling or watching tv in their air-conditioned houses...but that's another story for another time. Because it was slow, there wasn't much for us to do after our lunch runs. K and R and I would end up being given the oddest jobs to accomplish- clearing out basement rooms full of junk, washing windows, sweeping the lot where the vans were parked. It was during one of those lazy, sultry afternoons that Darin discovered his phone was gone. He had a tracking device on it though, and once on the computer he discovered it was in a garage or a house far up North in the city. He was furious, trying to call it, angry that someone would steal from him, the dangerous ex-soldier. He decided that as soon as he was done his shift he was going to drive up to the house and knock on the door and demand that they return it. This was the most drama we had seen in days, and because I knew Darin best and knew how angry he was I asked if I could go along with him. Well, I didn't really ask, so much as told my friends, and my boss, and Darin, that I was going.

We got in his van, and I rolled the windows down all the way. Some rock music was playing on the radio, and I was feeling so very happy to be on an adventure. There was a certain freedom and joy that was to be had from going out of the ordinary. The sun was right overhead, and it turned even the turbulent neighbourhood we found ourselves in quite pretty and idyllic.  We drove for a long time, trying to narrow down from the grainy internet picture where the phone was located. Finally we got it to the right property. Darin wanted to break into the garage to look for his phone, but I thought it would be best if we knocked on the front door first to see if anyone was home who could explain. No one answered our knocking, and after convincing Darin that breaking in to the house itself was a bad idea also, he wrote an angry note and posted it in their mail box. I took the note out and rewrote it with much less expletives, and reposted it. Then we got in the van and drove back to the restaurant.