a lament: to beg for a season's end

a bath, a book, a glass of wine. a fine end to a mostly long day.
the book? elizabeth smart’s By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. poetric prose. love tryst. “homewrecking”, said moralistic critics of the time. swirling romance, says i. fitting for a tub.1940s classic lost for a couple of decades, then found again.
she’s describing a stretch of northern californian coastline, up into oregon, that i know well and haven’t seen for seven years. inside, my heart’s breaking a little. i long for it, but i mostly long for summer.
honeysuckle-scented nights. warm salted breezes off the shore. the feeling of sweat on the small of your back. when air’s temperature matches the warmth of your breath. the heat of the sun on as much skin as you can bare. nights warm enough to lie under a tree or lay stargazing on the beach as conversation bleeds into dawn. jacketless at 2am.
i ache for summer.
oh, winter. take your leave now. your seemingly endless mottled grey. your naked shrivelled trees. your bracing winds that shock exposed skin. the uncertainty each of your days brings: is that jacket enough? is this? your rain, your snow, your dark, your cold.
i am that girl who stops to smell the flowers. often, daily. even in this late, haunted season. i’ll linger just to soak in a moment of a sunrise or sunset, whether i’ve a camera or time or no. i’ll look for the little things in the world that tell me something today is different from yesterday. it seems like every day brings newness in the summer, but in the winter change comes from a newspaper box being empty or new litter in a bush.
there’s something about the daylight come those warm months. here it’s light from 4am to 10pm at summer solstice. and me, i’m as alive as i get. i just can’t get enough of those endless days. the yukon’s 23 hours of daylight were just magical for me.
i miss walking slow for the sake of it. i want to cycle and see the world from handlebars and a swift descent again. i miss taking the long way because i can. i miss being out because it’s better than being in.
i miss sleeping naked. i could sleep naked and be perfectly warm under my wonderful goosedown, even now, but the inhumanity of pulling that warmth aside in the morning and being assailed by the brutal reality that is a winter dawn, well. it’s a loss i’m willing to take by way of donning some threads in the night. but, oh, how i’d like to put a swift and certain end to it all.
and a wide-open window with the warm night breeze wafting over a scantily clad me in bed? well, that’s what the season’s all about. nice nights, nice days, a cotton sheet, and everything in between.
also longed for are afternoons of lying about, watching the beautiful people and seeing life unfold as everyone takes to the sidewalks and the grassy stretches. summer is made for voyeurism and hedonism, whilst winter is made for surviving.
yes, i’m done with winter. i’ve survived. now let me thrive. i’m fit to burst here.

2 thoughts on “a lament: to beg for a season's end

  1. emma

    I couldn’t have said it better. I am in complete agreement. I am so ready to turn off my heater and turn my face to the sun. If it rains for too much longer I may go insane.

  2. alana

    OMG…i am SO ready to see the end of winter. it’s been horribly long, even for manitoba.
    i too, miss sleeping naked, i miss being able to wear only a tank and boxer briefs in my living area.

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