Brown World

Its gone cooler again, hovering around -3 and -4C. There is no snow and the grasses and scrub are the dun colour of sleeping dogs. There is an odd sort of hush in the air these days, as if the sleeping things outside had slowly realized that Spring is a mere two months away. I imagine their collective jaw suddenly closing as they remember flutterings of buoyant air tossing their fronds and leaves about; as they imagine the sun at 8pm. But maybe its just me.

I remember standing on the GO train platform in Oshawa last winter as I was just taking it for the first few times into Toronto. I prefer the lead car as it lets me off conveniently close to exits once we pull into Union station, but it does mean walking the full length of the train to reach it. There are 10-12 cars of two decks apiece that are each 40 paces long. Its a long walk. Before I got the timing right in arriving at the station, I'd often get there before the train and wait in the bitter, bitter cold at the end of the barren and forlorn platform; shuffling my feet and hunching my shoulders while the wind howled. Oh my god, is this what is ahead of me for the entire foreseeable future? I'd whimper. But then I learned, of course, and now it is just a brisk walk to the waiting car and a swing aboard to sit down and open my iBook and see what digital things there are to do. But it seemed so much damned colder last year than this. I dread the feeling creeping over me that winter has yet to come into its own this year and will sink this part of the country into a deep and lasting freeze. Being this close to the lake (Ontario) means winds are always laden with moisture and can get right inside your bones when it blows.

I have nothing to say.