Beautiful Cynicism III

I mean, what better way to jump-start one’s morning than with some slushy alcohol straight from the freezer? When I stumbled down the hall I was bombarded by white light coming from every direction – the daylight bouncing off of tiny ice particles and rolling snowdrifts in the back and front yards. Pale gray sky, a family of chickadees nesting in the bathroom fan duct, and me: sleepy, ill, restless.

We’re cosmic dust but you’re everything to me.

He shovelled the backyard walk last night; the parting of the snow, à la Moses. The newly-created path looks like a gaping wound left in the some wintry beast. Trees heaving under the weight of the wet slush, accumulated over several months now; some flakes are falling lightly, but it’s nothing to write home about. I wonder if my typing will wake him from his slumber…

Carnaval, mardi gras, Carnaval
Chantons tous le joyeux Carnaval!

The Sunday crush of people will be out there, waiting for us to emerge, blinking, into the light of the afternoon. I will be a vision in chocolaty brown; he, in muted earth tones. We will skate along the river, beneath the high-flying crows calling out to each other, above a free-flowing, organic, underwater world. We will watch other couples skate past us, fuzzy mittens holding tight to each other; we will see small children shriek with delight at the idea of gliding along the waterways; we will carefully avoid the various games of pick-up hockey sure to be taking place, manned by boys of all ages. Revelers from the Festival du Voyageur will spill out from the festival’s various venues in Saint-Boniface on to the icy surface of the muddy water, and mix and mingle with the rest of us who refuse to pay ever-higher prices just to munch on beaver tails and sip hot cocoa whilst perusing a few snow sculptures (impressive and skilfully-executed as they may be). It is a Sunday in February in Winnipeg: the height of Winter.

It’s been so long since you’ve said, “well I know what I want, and what I want’s right here with you.”