It’s Winter Now in Ottawa, and it Hurts

I haven’t blogged much about Canada—or anything, really—lately because there’s nothing exciting, fun or noteworthy to share about Canada or life in general in November and early December.

It’s bleak, dark, and getting colder by the minute. I’m a perpetually frozen ghost, wrapped up in a throw and shuffling around the house like I was left behind by the ship when the Arctic expedition packed up. I don’t linger outside. I walk as fast as possible from point A to point B, trying my best not to lose heat faster than I can produce it.

It was already chilly in Ottawa when I came back from France, but from a Canadian perspective, it wasn’t actually cold yet. It still felt like a reprieve before winter, Canada_^TM.

I was productive for the first three weeks. I worked, cooked, cleaned, organized, had coffee with friends, met with Mark’s teachers, and tackled a number of chores, including creating my in-laws’ favourite Christmas present and getting the newest 2024 COVID and flu shot. Mark got the flu shot with me plus his grade 7 vaccines (meningococcal conjugate [Men-C-ACYW], hepatitis B and human papillomavirus [HPV]) at school. “Three shots! Three needles! In a row!” Poor Mark wasn’t happy about it but I find it great we have school-based immunization clinics, especially considering we don’t have a GP. This may be the first time his school does something that makes sense to me.

I crossed things off my list, putting on a winter jacket the first week, then adding a scarf the following, digging my beanie out of the “winter stuff” box a few days later and finally learning the hard way that I shouldn’t be going anywhere without gloves. I started filling my hot water bottle every night. I started dreading taking my clothes off to go take a shower. I started to feel cold all the time.

Now, there’s cold and cold. There’s the “I can’t feel my body and my hands are numb” kind of being cold. And there’s the constant feeling of discomfort that nags me wherever I go, whatever I do. I can’t focus, I’m cold. I can’t sleep, I’m cold. I can’t stay here, I’m cold. I need to move, I’m cold.

I’m just not built for Canada. Sorry, eh.

The weeks flew by but the dark evenings started to drag on forever. Don’t ask me what time it is between 4 p.m. and 2 a.m., I have no idea—it’s cold, it’s pitch dark, it’s boring and there’s nowhere to go, we’re all just waiting to be tired enough to go to bed.

And then, last Tuesday, I walked back home from a coffee shop in Little Italy with tears in my eyes, knowing full well this was the last time I was enjoying snow-free scenery in Ottawa. Goodbye, clean pavement! Goodbye, grass! Goodbye, snowbank-free sidewalks!

You don’t even have to watch The Weather Network to know a snowstorm is on the way. The collective, city-wide (region-wide) sigh is almost audible. People will tell you. People will talk about it. And if you had your earbuds on all day, you would still spot some clues—walkway mats everywhere, empty shelves in supermarkets, piles of salt bags, and other ice melters.

It snowed all right.

The already empty streets and avenues totally emptied out, and the constant but never fast enough ballet of snowplows took the stage.

When snow starts falling, it’s very quiet for a few hours. Sounds are muffled until a loud “beep,” the first of many, as roads as being cleared onto sidewalks, sidewalks are being cleared onto driveways, and driveways are being cleared onto the road, only to be covered again by the next city snowplow.

This year, winter didn’t knock on the door and politely offered to come back later, noting we were all busy with life. It just stayed.

We were snowed in against on Saturday night. It’s snowing again tomorrow night.

Winter is here, and everything stopped. I had no work last week, and no energy either. Suddenly, fighting against winter is a full-time job. Logistics are tedious—walk carefully, drive carefully, layer up, change shoes, spread salt, clean up the salt, shovel the snow, and repeat. You’d think Canadians are used to winter but they’re not. It still catches us by surprise, in a “fuck, not again” kind of way.

“Take it easy,” Feng recommends when he sees me going out, again. “It’s winter…”

“It’s winter” is Canadian for “it’s okay to slack off.”

But slacking off doesn’t make me happy. I’m happier when I create, when I work, when I accomplish something at the end of the day.

Writing this post counts, doesn’t it? Because I’m getting cold, sitting here at my desk, wrapped in a throw…