everything else: seasonal affect
dear internet,
last february i told myself i would go for a walk whenever the sun was out. and i meant it: at the first hint of light i was shrugging on my coat and out the door. i used to live in a rich neighbourhood, and on my walks i could watch as spring appeared in the squares of other people's gardens. i think i felt, last year, that this was all winter could be—a matter of marking time before spring, which was the promise fulfilled, the point of the year—what else were we moving toward if not the flowers and the bees and the length of the days? this year winter is different, reiterative. the lake ices and melts, ices and melts, the sky is a uniform grey, and always i am wearing the wrong number of layers. i complain about the weather constantly but walk outside in it all.
today in the sun at the lake i walk further than i have ever been. in the shade of a hedge the frost remains on the grass. a woman in a white fur coat stops to look at a baby being wheeled past us. i sit on a bench and unpick the layers of sound: bluetit, goldfinch, magpie, jackdaw, blackbird, woodpecker, the clumsy rush of pigeons in flight. a squirrel hops from one tree to another. when leaving home, i’d placed my vase on the windowsill, and upon my return i find that my tulips haven’t turned toward the sun; instead, when i open the door, they’re turned toward me.
love,
t