I genuinely hope that March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a little baby bunny decked out in glitter and rainbows.
Because even in Toronto (!!!), winter has been exhausting. I’ve only been here one month (Today actually! Toronto-versary!) and the weather has been draining me. Isn’t it weird to think how LONG ago Christmas was and it is STILL winter?! I go to take the streetcar in the morning and the wind has actually made me nauseous – it’s that powerful. And by the time I get to work, I’m ten times more tired than when I woke up because it’s just .. gruelling. “Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.”
This quote is too perfect: “The beauty of things must be that they end.” Just when you can’t take it anymore and you’re so full of disdain for this atrocious thing you absolutely cannot control and it is strongly affecting every facet of your mood – it changes. It ends. And there’s beauty in overcoming it.
I think -knock on wood- we might be done with that brutality. It’s -3 here today and as a former Winnipegger, that is balmy. And I’m ready for another form of renewal. I like relating rather insignificant things like the weather to the bigger picture because it forces everything into perspective and this is just too perfect.
Nothing is permanent – and whether that’s good or bad or good AND bad, I’m not sure yet – I do stand by it. Something shook me up personally last week and threw my mind into a cruel tailspin of thoughts that I had carefully stowed away with lock and key. And being away from my friends and family made it more difficult. Like an unexpected weather phenomenon, it blew right at me, and rattled me, and made me nauseous, and sad.
In Canada, we CAN and are totally allowed to associate winter and pain. (We are winter?) But the wonderful thing is that winter is temporary, and we always get through it. It stings and we curse and cuss and groan and moan, but it passes. And this emotional glitch, it is passing too.
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
There’s medicine for getting through winter – it comes in the form of comfort food, coffee, great music in small venues, blankets and books. The trick is to use the same to get through distress.
And so at the first sign of warmth, I mended my soul in coffee shops and book stores and record stores in a neighbourhood I hadn’t yet explored – Little Italy (Little Italy, BIG heart) – and I intend to continue exploring and mending as the temperature rises.
Keep your head up, your scarf wrapped tight – This too, shall pass.
