April is the month that the snow finally melts in the Yukon. It’s a chilly, muddy month. A month for the last of the cross country skiing before you get too far into the calendar. For jumping on the trampoline in your wool socks and hoodie, mud boots kicked off and lying to the side. A month where detritus melts out of snowbanks full of gravel, a winter’s worth of dog poop revealed in the yard, plastic bags blowing in the wind. April brings the first rain we’ve seen in 6 or 7 long months. The rain that comes to take the away the snow, wash the winter from your soul.
I’m going to give the Blogging From A-Z in April challenge a shot. That’s one blog post per day April (except Sundays). That’s 26 blog posts. One for each letter of the alphabet. Wish me luck!
At 10:45 in the morning my car’s thermometer is pegged at-30: as low as it will go. I do not know how cold it really is, only that it is colder than 30 below. After an hour on the road, there is still ice on the hood of the car and the clutch is still as stiff as tar.
I am driving East, into the rising sun, with everything I own.
when the road ahead is drenched in molten gold i know to raise my hand
in anticipation of being blinded
until the road slides west and sunrise
falls
behind me.
outhouse in December some one has left the seat up amber icicles
driving east, sarah brightman
eases the pie jesu
into the rising sun as brilliant bursts of liquid bronze and gold splash champagne, and shadows
chase the sweetness of the melody across the hillsides.
telephone poles stretching one after the other, t-braces white with frost, a thousand messiahs
with knees and feet of alabaster and frosty brows bowed down,
connected by living wire, carryingmy whispered voice from christ jesus
to christ jesus
until it reaches your
ears.
click here to be directed to youtube if you are reading this in email and the video doesn’t show up.
I posted this back in March. Seems appropriate to re-post today. Hope it gives you a bit of a laugh…
It seems this year I do not know if the snow will ever go. In March April it sits here like a brick (not a brick like “you’re a brick, Dick”), I mean a brick like bricks and mortar, the kind used in the Latin Quarter.
Winter hard and cold and cruel will last until the end of school, and instead of flying kites, all the kids will get frostbite. No more soccer, bikes or bats, for them it’s mittens, scarves and hats.
Cry and wail and weep away, it’s in the snow you’re forced to play. Sleds and skates and hockey pucks, if you don’t like it, then you’re (ahem) out of luck. For no matter how you plea, summer’s just not meant to be.
It seems this year I do not know
if the snow will ever go.
In March it sits here like a brick
(not a brick like “you’re a brick, Dick”),
I mean a brick like bricks and mortar,
the kind used in the Latin Quarter.
Winter hard and cold and cruel
will last until the end of school,
and instead of flying kites,
all the kids will get frostbite.
No more soccer, bikes or bats,
for them it’s mittens, scarves and hats.
Cry and wail and weep away,
it’s in the snow you’re forced to play.
Sleds and skates and hockey pucks,
if you don’t like it, then you’re (ahem) out of luck.
For no matter how you plea,
summer’s just not meant to be.
When I step out of the car, the wind takes my breath away. I fumble with my hood, but the closure is too tight, so I yank my right mitten off with my teeth and unzip my coat a bit. Holy Freaking gawd, it’s cold. I can’t get the hood up with one hand, so get back into the car. A blast of snowy wind rocks the car as, with two hands finally free, I manage to pull my hood up and re-zip my coat. Leaving my things behind for a minute, I step out of the car again and immediately turn my back to the wind. I take two side-steps to the back door, get the extension cord out and move quickly to plug the car in. This part isn’t too bad as my back is to the wind and I’ve left the engine running so the headlights shine onto the electrical outlet mounted on the post that I’ve parked in front of. At least I can see what I’m doing.
The college parking lot is full this morning – it always is when the temperature drops into “cold spell” ranges – and I have had to park at the very back of the lot. I suppose that’s good…extra steps and all that, but this morning I could do without them. Finally, clutching my insulated coffee cup to my chest with one hand and gripping my purse with the other, I begin the trek to the building.
The world is a cozy muffled place inside my hood. The snow strikes the fabric over my right ear with a deceptively soft patter that reminds me a bit of rain on an umbrella, but by the time I get to the building, my shins are stinging and burning with cold. It’s an odd sensation to have a warm torso and warm feet but be nearly frostbitten in a single area the width of my hand, just below the knees. I need a much longer coat. Or maybe after 27 years in the Yukon I should buy some snow pants.
I am taking my coat off when my coworker comes stomping in, face red with cold and hair disheveled. “Bloody god-forsaken country,” she mumbles not so quietly. We laugh. And really, it’s only -28o c. Hardly cold at all.
