winter.

As the days get shorter and the nights darker and longer, I find myself pining for a place I spent three years trying to escape from. Ottawa is a lot of things; My Kind Of Place it is not. Most people who knew me when I called that town home remember what a misery I was during that time; I spent most of my National Capital tenure strategizing ways to get the hell out. When I finally barreled South down highway 416 one last Friday night in May, it was one of the finest road trips I've ever taken.

But that's not my point. My point is that when you spend three years somewhere, you get a feel for it. And regardless of how much you may hate it there, you usually manage to find a few things worth loving, too. Perversely, in light of my utter hatred of cold weather, the thing I miss about Ottawa today is winter. Not that February dump of forty centimetres of pain kind of winter, not the kind of winter where you can't even get your car into your driveway on account of the snow and you end up blocking the whole street and the driver of the OC Transpo bus you're obstructing has to help you push your way out. That kind of winter I can do without.

No, the best part of an Ottawa winter was always the beginning. The temperature would just drop one day in late November, the snow would start, the canal would ice over. My neighbourhood would get suddenly quiet as everyone went back inside, cozying up in those grand old brick houses. I'd walk past their bright windows on my way home to my own little attic haven and I'd feel so lucky, to be so cold and on my way to somewhere so warm and safe. It was a sort of honeymoon period at the beginning of December, a time of sudden burrowing, holing up. For a hermit like me, it was a dream come true.

My first December in Ottawa, I wasn't actually all that miserable. I was plugging away at my job and feeling pretty good about it, I had my handful of friends. I was seeing a boy who was so kind and cute and in possession of an excellent record collection. We spent our weekends doing the things you do when you're young and falling into something--eating dinner at restaurants, fooling around like teenagers (ie. while listening to Thrush Hermit), strolling around holding hands, feeling significant and needed.

One Friday night in December we went to look at the Christmas lights on the Parliament buildings. We ate burgers at my favourite bar in town and then went back to his place, where made out while watching Labyrinth and then stayed up too late. I had to work the next day, and he insisted on walking me home in the morning. He lived in Centretown, and I was in the Glebe, just a few blocks further south. It had snowed in the night and we trudged up Bank Street together, not a car in sight. The sky was that wicked, foreboding shade of gunmetal gray that held the promise of more snow to come, and the air was so still. When we got to my front porch, he kissed me goodbye, and I walked up three flights of stairs to my place. I turned on my own newly-acquired Christmas lights and laid on my living room floor, bathed in twinkling light, safe and sound.