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.”

Sun streaming in through the slats in the blinds; snow and ice lightly caked on the windows; a rush of warm air pushed through the ancient iron grating on the floor, mere steps away; his chest rising and falling to a gentle rhythm under my arm: these are the sights and sounds greeting me as I wake on a lazy Saturday morning.

Upon waking, the day stretches before us, arms wide open and inviting. Will there be a walk in a park or on a frozen river, the hardened snow crunching loudly beneath our feet? Will there be an undiscovered diner or hole-in-the-wall eatery serving up exotic fare? Will there be a road trip, car full of out-of-town baking and empty coffee cups? Will there be coffeehouses and fountain pens, zombies and go-karts, or cocktails in the evening?

As are you,
     as is your neighbour
     as is your cousin
     as is your best friend
     as is your avowed enemy.
Are we not all quilts,
our personas a patchwork of
different colours, patterns, and textures?

To some I am intelligent,
exuding quiet confidence.
To some I am an activist,
principled and opinionated.
To some I am a nurturer,
a smile ready on my lips.
To some I am a writer,
and we share in the power of the written word.
To some I am judge and jury,
hard-hearted and uncompromising.
To some I am childlike,
filled with wonder for simple things.
To some I am invisible,
lacking in drama and extroversion.
To some I am a monster,
selfish and forgetful.
To some I am musical,
delighting in song and dance.
To some I am happy-go-lucky,
always laughing, always pleasant.
To some I am oversensitive,
taking offence at everything in sight.
To some I am a counsellor,
providing advice and a sympathetic ear.
Within,
I am all of these
at once.
Without…

One cannot be everything to everyone,
     and yet we try.

Below, I’m excerpting an excellent article from Pandagon.net. It so clearly encapsulates not only my bafflement in the face of rabid anti-choicers, but also articulates better than I ever could my reasons for identifying with the pro-choice movement.

Perversely, I think that the anti-choice hatred of living is also based in a fear of death. Really living also provokes reminders of mortality. Roeder’s obsession with decay really shows how it works. Living means dying, getting closer to it every day. The expression we use to remind ourselves to really live our lives is “carpe diem”—”seize the day”. Unspoken, because you don’t have to speak it, is that you should seize today because tomorrow will not come. Not literally (for most of us), but the sense is that you cannot put off living your life until the future, because the future gets ever-briefer. Most of us are able to understand this, and we make our choices accordingly. We try to get our work done. We don’t stay in on Friday night. We figure we’ll take that chance on falling in love. There isn’t going to be an infinite amount of time to do these things, might as well start living now. Sometimes I think anti-choicers skip that step of understanding, and instead stave off fear of death by dwelling on the hope that not living will keep it away, that you can somehow purify yourself until death stops knocking. Not consciously, but subconsciously, it seems clear. Death is so scary, and so hopefully by denying living, death can be safely ignored.

between light and dark
     sun and wind
     word and deed
like hoarfrost on a winter’s morning
like a heart hardened one time too many
firm, yet so delicate
     suspended in time
     and cold to the touch

It never happens in one fell swoop.
Goodness slowly chipped away
     one molecule at a time.
Units of trust and respect, expressed in
     smiles
     laughs
     sighs
     and gentle moans.
Can we ever be aware, truly?
Can we ever comprehend the loss of something
we never knew existed?
That delicate balance of trust and respect,
of hidden and visible,
of knowledge and fears.

Operant conditioning of the soul
Am I so used to the shock
as to have rendered it no longer shocking?

I wade knee-deep into memories
the scent of cilantro
    warmed by afternoon sun
the song of the wind in treetops
    dancing in Mount Arrowsmith’s shadow
A sign of strength, or a sign of
    weakness?
And what if I cannot tell the two apart?
And what if they are one and the same?

My heart aches, my blood boils
my breath catches in my throat
    that familiar feeling of
    hitting my head against a brick wall
    again and again

The moutain, bathed in the
mauvish hues of a sunset,
my curves, soft and supple,
bathed in pleasant but ancient history,
my cloak of bubbles a message
from another time,
    of Molotov cocktails and
    love in every room

I bear witness and feel… nothing.
Well, something.
I can’t forget, as was sung
and, equally,
I forgot to remember to forget
as heard on my mother’s stereo
so many moons ago.
Why does the wisdom of our elders
not prevent us from repeating our mistakes?

Pensive? Perhaps,
and why not?
Have I not lifetimes to conjure,
    memories to deconstruct,
    hopes to nurture?
    … or was that the other way round?

Perhaps I have grown used to the treachery
Perhaps I have grown tired of it all
Perhaps I have grown
    Or
perhaps it matters not, simply because
he is here and so am I