2023-03-20: spring; turn
most of my life i've thought the seasons' starts optimistic. where i live, winter stretches often six months from the first hard snow to the start of the last melt. the growing season only a few months: frost at night well into may, the temperatures dipping to 0 again come september.
today is spring equinox, where the retreat of the long winter nights has reached a balancing point. after this, long days, the hours of sunlight stretching late into the evening, the point where things seem easier, appearing perhaps a little less grim.
winter my diet becomes heavier. the slow cooker sees heavy use: soups and stews, chili and rice. i come upstairs and check on supper. i pour myself a whisky while it cooks. take a sip, rattle the ice, check the pots.
tonight is honey garlic chicken, lots of rice, salad. splitting what's left of last week's cake.
a lot of days a part of me wishes i lived somewhere more temperate, but winter gets into you. i look at winter in other parts of the continent and it doesn't really feel like its own season: a bit cooler, maybe a bit wetter. there's something about being snowed in, the house creaking as the temperature drops. falling asleep under a heavy pile of blankets. drifting to sleep, your book falling against your chest. the stillness outside a different kind of dreaming.
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