do the thing that scares you

so, this lady in the street, muffled in a coat complete with fur collar, with her ridiculous cloth tote, "do the thing that scares you", well, fuck you, lady! so cold i've stopped feeling my legs the moment i got out, this is survival mode weather, and you're wearing first world wisdom straight from renaud bray on your shoulder! have you ever done the thing that scares you, lady? you wouldn't know what scares you if it hit you in the face! have you ever immigrated into a country where they speak two different foreign languages and they hate each other and themselves and you have to live with that now, hey, have you?where do you find the thing that scares you? is it on the icy walk between the metro and the cushion under your bottom in some soulless office? you act like doing the thing that scares you is a hobby, to pick up at will and show off on facebook about, not the living breathing every fucking second of life.

like how i thought i knew snow just because i'd seen it fall all fluffy and fairy-tale like, but then  this motherfucker's done its time in the streets. first it wasn't so bad, crunching underfoot in that satisfying way cause there's gotta be something satisfying at minus 30 C, but then heeeey. unfreezing and refreezing over two months now, think about it, snow is supposed to be ephemere, in two months of hardship it will turn into a dubious thing. but you tell yourself no, i must go out, i must get groceries and breathe air or whatever normal, employed humans do outside. i will avoid the black ice, rather than spend 15$ on crampons at the pharmaprix i will walk carefully and just take the scenic route in the park. so there's this white field, no problem, it's pretty, i can walk across, just get my exercise, but you know nothing of snow, obviously. cause it lets you start, the heavy crust holds, polished and shiny in the sun, and then once you're well and away, and so alone you can hear the tiny noise of giving the ice makes, it's just a thin sheet of ice and beneath it the jaws of softness open and the next instant you're pulled under in the silence. one leg all buried in til mid-thigh and the other barely, half-suspended like in absurd slow-motion, and welcome to canada! in two minutes you'll probably freeze for good if you don't manage to extract yourself from under there, which, how? because you can't pull yourself up by your weight, the fucking weight is what got you down there in the first place. and there's no one around because at minus 30, in the middle of the day, who the hell walks here anyway? though even if they were you'd rather die of shame. but maybe you can live with shame better than hypothermia, because you feel the deep cold through your pant and into your boot and if you don't get out soon you'll catch a cold and then you think, oh, i can't afford to be sick now, and you're alone and you feel the bone chill. do you know about the bone chill, lady, that comes with the being scared? this is what you should print on your damn artsy tote: DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE BONE CHILL?

so, okay, what i did then was, i  threw myself on my back, hoping to break the ice around some more and to manoeuver somehow onto my knees and then scramble out. and then for a bit, before i remembered to try, i was all stretched out, like back when i was little when we were making snow angels. and i had to laugh because it was crazy, over one foot deep in the snow and by now wet all over with a numbed body and burning breath, and is this what everybody is chasing? it is so tempting to stay there, beautiful, framed in the sparkliest of white. i haven't made a will, i honestly thought. how would they find out, i thought.

but just for one second, because we all know it's pretend, then i said, sister snow - it was her i had to convince - i dug myself into a hole, it's been entertaining like hell, but i have to get out, quand meme. 

and then i'm better for a while, and more forgiving toward the canadian ladies with their totes and their fur collars and the snow and the ways people must find to push themselves or to keep themselves warm.