The Snow Queen

Last week, there was a heartfelt plea from Rachel H. in the comments, asking me to use my apparently by now widely (well, at least in the comments of my blog) recognized powers to please, please make the snowing stop. And she's not the only one who's had enough (I always thought Canadians were a hardier sort - after all, it's only been about three weeks).

The problem is this: despite a developing case of SAD making its appearance within days of winter kicking in, I am still enjoying it. I know. It's perverted. But there's something about the bracing northerly wind sweeping down the length of a long south-north street, seemingly straight from the Arctic, blasting through your body right into your bones, making your hands have that cold-bleached reddened look that causes them to buzz and hum as they warm up once you get inside. And when it snows, really snows? I'm as excited as a five-year-old with a new sled, exclaiming "it's snowing! It's snowing! Will you just look at that!" and humming one of my favourite old Danish songs that goes something like this "sneflokke kommer vrimlene, henover diger trimlene…”, which has something to do with flocks of snow tumbling in a crowd over the dikes. Unfortunately, so far, "really snows" hasn't lasted very long, qualifying only as some sort of snow shower, as opposed to a good wallop of a snowstorm.

And then there's this. Normally, I avoid going to the market on Saturdays because it looks like this:

but I did this past weekend, moving fast in a windchill of -17 and I dropped by St. Urbain Bagels for a hit of really excellent poppy seed bagels (and maybe one with cinnamon and raisin) and they’d just come out of the oven. I put the brown paper bag inside my jacket and heading home in the freezing cold with the smell of freshly baked bagels wafting in my nostrils, my body feeling the warmth seeping through the bag… well, it was heaven.

I would, however, like the record to show that I've never requested anything below say, -15 or so. This past week with almost double that has been a bit ridiculous. Especially if one has for instance, spontaneously popped to the grocery store without bundling up and are now barrelling down the street trying to get home before various appendages turn to frozen meat and suddenly, one hears a loud clunk coming from the direction of one's left rear wheel and suddenly one's wheelchair starts spinning in circles. And oddly, the world around seemed to slow down while the chair continues to spin like one of them G-force thingies, while the second between discovering that whipping your hand of the joystick isn't stopping the chair and realizing that you have to turn it of somehow allows for an eternity of worst-case scenarios scrambling through your brain, including the one where you are stuck on the sidewalk in minus plenty with no mittens, no scarf and a cell phone that's needed replacing for some time while part of your brain is deeply confused, yelling "but it isn't even Mercury retrograde yet!". Luckily, once I turned on the chair again, both motors worked and equally luckily, Dave, the brilliant repair dude was right in the neighbourhood.

Nervewracking adventures notwithstanding, I have a feeling the universe won't listen to me if I clearly don't mean my request to make winter stop. So, Rachel? Give me another couple weeks, maybe until the end of February. By then, I should’ve had enough.