don't be afraid, you're already dead.

it has been so long since i last wrote here. it would probably be appropriate to mention something that i found in a journal i started over two years ago and found again recently. i was on the train from halifax to toronto, about to start my fourth year of university, and wrote "following the night through the flatlands imprinted with glaciers' trawling footprints - we say this sky is the indigo of a watercolour, but what is the colour of water? - until we reach a place where provincial boundaries do not exist. the ache of homesickness spreads thin across the distance, across the thousands of miles of your home."

lichen erupted from the granite like the sea's foam, formless. my mother took that train and fell in love with that country as she shouldered westward. me, i've gone east.

i would have told you all about the christmas lights that hang from the trees on the champs-elysees and around the place de la bastille, the roasted chestnuts that are sold outside of the metro stations, the warm drinks we drink - jasmine tea in the atelier, mulled wine outside the bookshop, hot chocolate before bed - and the gingerbread my room-mate made, but i can think of nothing but the beautiful boy in the blue sweater who gave me rosemary and pistachio cake.

the winter wind is blowing hard and my hyacinths are starting to emerge.