The nicotine withdrawal is palpable. I try to concentrate, but I’m spending half of my mind trying not to get into any irrational arguments. The house is filled with the warmth from the fireplace, and a small laugh slips out at the realization that today, the middle of April, looks like the dead of winter. Spring, in Calgary, is more a promise for a nice day in summer. It’s the in-between season, a limbo, the unbaptized season. If spring is supposed to be a symbol for rebirth, spring in Calgary is an obsession with the act, perpetually mid-thrust.
“Spring”
This is the third time I’ve pulled my winter coat out of the closet. The first time I placed it in the closet it was the first day of spring, and was done more symbolically–It’s hard to imagine anyone in Calgary seriously believing that our weather would be constant enough to allow putting away winter clothing for a full season. I consider washing my coat before placing it back in the closet. On the shoulder I notice a long red strand of hair, and I pluck it off before realizing that the whole coat is peppered with a cadre of individual threads of her hair, and I worry that the red strands wouldn’t stay against the water, the soap, and the scrubbing.
Her hair is wrapped around the keys of my keyboard, peppered on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, and one particular strand is perched on my guitar tied to the E-String.
I like to think that I’m upset by the cold outside but I’m not. I do the usual head-shaking and complaining with the friendly strangers one meets in Calgary, but I know it is the same every year.
My ball-bag, splayed on the kitchen floor, is clean, and awaiting the ritualistic stuffing for the season. Clean as it is, it still smells of shale. I love the scent. There is something nostalgic about the first spring scent of shale, and trying to describe it is like trying to describe a warm bite of chocolate mocha cheesecake to someone who has never had chocolate, mocha, or cheesecake. I notice that there is a strand of hair wrapped around the black handle of the bag, and I worry it’ll be blonde, auburn, or (heaven forbid) pink, but no, the light catches and reflects the unmistakable red dye in it.
When I place my coat back in the closet for the (hopefully) final time I decide I won’t wash it.