whatever the weather

Today's a bright and cold, clear day. The birches outside my window have lost all their leaves and are as white as bones. That's a cliche image, I know, but they really do look like bones: the screen window still up in the frame obscures the details that make them birches, so their papery trunks and branches appear smooth and bleached. The branches end in red tips that squiggle off into space like rivers, or wrinkles. The sky is a homogenous blue. The air out there is cold, somewhere between freezing and 5 degrees, and the wind is up, sending waves of leaves down the paved streets.

Yesterday, Mat (my little brother, who is not so little anymore, standing a good 5 inches taller than me, and sporting a goatee on his handsome chin; even though he's 18 he could easily pass for 25) and I were walking down Kings College Road. I'd taken him to my day's slate of classes, and we were returning to my apartment where Mum was waiting, no doubt doing a Cryptoquote or something. The wind was intense: leaves were whipping up from the street and hitting us in the face! The clouds, having rained earlier, were puffy but still grey and present. We were yabbering on about some topic, the environment, or philosophy, or maybe just the fact that we had to duck to avoid the leaves' offense, and suddenly we looked up and there was:

The Biggest Rainbow I've Ever Seen!

It was a perfect 180 degrees, doubled, and at one point the bottom rainbow, already a clear ROY G BIV, began to shimmer with two or three "baby prisms" underneath it, sort of mirror images of the strongest colors, the darker colors. It looked like God borrowed it from the Care Bears or something, if you believe in that sort of thing. (God... or the Care Bears.) We gawked for a minute, then ran the rest of the way home, alerting Marlo and Mum to run outside and look! look! at the huge rainbow! before it goes away!

Something else I love about the wind outside these days: the way it makes my new blue scarf smell when I come inside. It's actually more of a shawl, but thin enough that I can fold its electric blue length around my neck like a scarf too. Needless to say, I'm wearing it everywhere these days, inside and out, it's just that pretty. And when I come inside from a windy walk, it smells cool and fresh, like a cat's fur or a small child's cheeks.

Mum and Mat were here, as I've said, and now are gone back to Cape Breton. There is a long weekend this week, due to Rememberance Day, and I'm looking forward to the time to just..chill..out. Take hot baths and long bike rides. Watch films. Do schoolwork.

Wait, how did that last one sneak in there? Oh right...it's always there. Good ol' albatross, how do I love thee...