three postcards + one letter
mini ode to springtime
1.
We just closed the show. I miss it already! The clean-up afterwards is much less intense than it was last year, and I think everything is already nearly done. I’m sad to leave my heart behind with these people. I’m clutching a bag of popeyes chicken, we’re headed back to theatre to eat, and would you just look at the sky? After celebrations we’re going to the bar and I’m planning on getting drunk and doing nothing but love. Thinking about temporality. Thinking about staying in the moment while it’s still here. Thinking about today not being tomorrow.
Wish you were here.
2.
There is a pair of geese my friend is trying to get a photo of, but they won’t stop eating. Wishing they would be more photogenic. I am trying to take more photos and also less at the same time. Our three hour class ended an hour early because the projector stopped working: this is the one time I thank technology for inconveniencing my education, because it is so nice out. We picked up some literary magazines made at the school and sat while I ate my lunch at the memorial bench in the field. Winter months are horrible but spring carries a bitterness with it too. By the time we are having sunny gorgeous good times, it is almost over. Not yet time to say goodbye. But it’s sooner than you think.
Wish you were here.
3.
Admittedly this wasn’t even the best moment of the sunset. Half an hour before this it was pink and blue and you could see it all reflected in building windows and I suppose I was so entranced I didn’t think to take a picture. But this was good, too. Met up with my friends after work and we went to Stong Pond — too muddy to get close enough to climb on the picnic bench, but the gravel path is nice enough too. I played fake hop-scotch and we planned a birthday party. Spring weather always feels like an apology. A kindness well-earned and sorely missed. The sky tells you congratulations, you survived winter, now I will melt all the snow and cover you in love. Thank you sky. You look so beautiful today.
Wish you were here.
1.
Dearest,
Back when I was in high school, I loved writing letters to people who would never read them and ripping those up and throwing them in my bedroom garbage. Now I’m nearing the end of my second year of university and I don’t think I really have anyone to which there’s something I wish I could say that I couldn’t just say to their face, or that I’m not saving to say another time. I just walked past a group of girls talking about their birthdays and one of them asked, “is 20 or 21 a big milestone?” and I think maybe everything is a big milestone. Life is just milestone after milestone and I love spring.
I’ll be twenty this summer, but I’m not even thinking about that because I am so focused on spring. The past two days have been warm and melted nearly all the snow, and I can proudly say I am starting to be able to not wear pants. I hate pants.
Like the weather, I’m in a time of transition. Springtime is an apology. The grass tells you secrets. My building is way too hot and it drives me to be outside more than not. I am acquaintances with puddles and best friends with re-growing bushes. I am fond of looking out my window in the morning and even fonder of not sleeping in. After two weeks of hard work my body finally buckled this morning and wouldn’t let me get up early, but my dreams were rife with sweetness so I find it harder to complain than usual. I just left a world where love envelopes me from all sides but today the sky, the sun, the earth, loves me too.
Spring is hurtling forwards and I am chasing it. I am chasing beauty. I am chasing the future. Here’s a secret: you are born of pure sweetness and spring was always made for you. For the lovely. The grass told me.
Dance with me, will you? One last time. While the sun is high in the sky and the birds are not a little bit shy. I’ll be new tomorrow, I’ll be something new. Dance with me today.
Love,
Ani