DISCOVERING WINTER

The sun has finally made it to the glaring point in the morning horizon as we turn East onto the highway. Guelph is behind us now, coming up past the specks of villages and town whipping past the window as the tree’s form dripping ink impressions in my eyes. I grind my sneakers clean from the salt and sand in the car’s carpet as I keep my eyes steady on the trees growing, flaring, and inching bit by bit into wonderful stains across a clean pallet. “Look, dad,” I say turning my weak hand upwards towards the window. “You can tell if the trees are in pain by the yellow they admit from their branches.”
“What’s that?” my father asks back turning his eyes slightly from off the road for a moment.
I keep reaching out with my hand. “Healthy trees should be black against the sun, and dazzling grey and white in a winter morning,” I say. “Those few are sick, they are in pain.”
My father says nothing coming down the off ramp back to town.

OLEANDER, OH-LEANDER,
An hour and kilometers away my hands in mitts and mitts on steel bar rail making my way past freckled faces, cute long winter parkas and sneering emo punk kids. I agreed to meet Sarah in our usual spot in Union Station with the plans to hit the winter fest in the heart of the downtown city. The way down I made sure to dump Harmer’s new album into my mp3 player and I had the rush of the trails in my ears, perfect for the soundtrack of the great adventure in the Canadian winter. I hum the songs in my head as we break down the street to get our skates and to meet up with our friends.

NOW ON THE ICE, ITS ROCKET RICHARD!
“Come on, Kinetix,” I say inching slowly forwards with my arms wiggling a bit. It had to have been since I was in grade 7 the last time I got out on the ice. People were darting in all around us and Sarah had already taken off in a zip of ice-shards from her blades and was well out of view. Kinetix seemed to wobble around posed as a gingerbread man with his ankles bending outwards, yelling at me. “This was a bad idea,” He says. “Why did I listen to you? Wait- why do I KEEP listening into you, AnnK, You’re fired.”
I chuckle a bit and scoot slowly over to him. “Come on, its easy… just try to get your balance and just go with it.”
Kinetix reaches out with his hand and almost takes me down on the ice with him as he stumbled and slipped around. I backed up and promptly made up my mind. “Are you going to be alright if I just take off for a few rotations around the pond?”
“I’ll be fine, I can do this,” Kinetix replies, teetering a bit.
I turn around and skate off with a slight shock of fear in my belly as people zoom past me with amazing speed. I am alone in a sea of strangers flying all around me. I keep my eyes focused and think: “Now, now, it’s just like driving. No one is going to mess up unless you make them and no one is checking for your license.” I start to go a bit faster, one foot in front of other foot, eyes still at my feet. Before in my room I packed books in my backpack: The Old Man of the Sea by Hemingway was one of them. I pictured the sea in the back of my eyes and glided past and into a school of fish, moving faster then them, a current pushing against my face. I smile brightly in the sun and in the distance, I see Sarah up ahead. I move up closer, now were side by side and were both smiling at each other and we moving together, laughing through the people.
Sarah was at my right when a kid smacked right in front of her and she toppled over. She gets up and wipes frost off her hands. I put my arm out and she takes it- we move through people, going good- were like pro’s on the ice and no one would guess it was over 10 years since the last time.

YOU HAVE FOUND 1 ELIXIR
Back at Jory’s house were joking up, but the couches are killing us. Kinetix traded back his skates only one hour after making a few attempts around the rink where as Sarah and I kept racing around lost in a living merry-go round of ice and winter coats. I grow weary as the sun goes down, the black oil seeps in across the horizon, and my thoughts turn of my planted little orange house on the hill back in Milton. Who will feed the cat? Who will clean the dishes?
Jory piles on the old house records for me as we pow it in the living room. It’s all great, the clock is stopped and it feels just like every damn apartment Jory ever had in his life you squatted down in. It is all brimming with movement and planning, great ideas, good conversations. We joke around and I point out all the great things around Jory’s place to Sarah.
The amusing thing about friends is that as we get older, the visits and interactions are few and few, but the stories always grow more comical due to this absence. I have known Jory for over eight years now, Kinetix for over six, I just met Sean and Sarah, and Sarah J herself is all new and excited about this time in her life. I remember what it was like for me at her age, that age! Dear lord, it was that age itself when I was sitting in Jory’s living room for the first time, already down in the city, already on the big start to the huge adventure of life. The passion of coming out, being fresh, falling in love for the first time, the dangers, the comical wit and hilarity of those days. I had it heavy back then and I could say I still got it heavy now, but the beginnings of then, that time are wild echoes and point me into a stronger, more progressed adult.

THE BROKEN HEART ON THE ROAD
I sit in the front seat of the bus watching the rain bead down the windshield. I stare out at the blanket of black in the distance, orange brown lights die off behind us curling out of the city limits. Harmer sings in my ears, “He will be waiting for me, he will be, wont he?”I wonder myself if the bane of my adventures, the pain I suffer in my heart is only due because I choose my love of creation more then the comfort of a warm body. The drive of pushing myself to the ultimate limits in my production, creation and bleeding of my craft has proven to myself more reliable then people with confusion in their souls. Sure, I have confusion too, but I find joy in it. It pleases me like no other can. The art and drive for creation will always drive me down this lonely road back home to where I sit and wait.