EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

The Rites of Spring

It happens every year around this time. That light, that certain kind of light that I’m convinced never shines on me, returns. And I always make the same mistake whilst fully aware I’m making the same mistake: I put my pair of Sorel Snowlions in the basement for summer storage. I’ve worn these clunky boots for more than 30 years. They go up to my knees. They used to be snow white, now they’re black, grey and, weirdly, even pink in places; Ann prefers I not wear them beyond the property lines of the Crooked 9. My little ritual is the harbinger of our last heavy snowstorm. Inevitably I have to go downstairs and bring them up again. That’s all right, I like routine.

Ann’s been planning her garden since February, that month when we notice the winter’s darkness has received some sort of cosmic sanctity as the sky elevates higher and higher, grey turning to blue. Ann reviews her gardening books and consults her hand-written notes from previous years; Ann tends to write the way she sketches plants and flowers, in pencil. Seeds are germinating in her head and on the sunny window sill of the laundry room. We make plans to investigate local greenhouses, more fun than groceries or a beer run. That space in the mud area off the kitchen my Sorels used to occupy has been filled by Ann’s red rubber gardening clogs. Her yellow pair too.

I sense some internal breaker joyfully tripping. The music constantly playing back in my head has switched formats. My unofficial song of spring is “Fishin’ in the Dark” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Alas the rest of the album’s a bit too polished to spin all the way through, but “summer’s almost comin’ and the days are getting’ long.” And Neil, man: “Comes a time/Comes a light, feelin’s liftin’/Lift that baby right up off the ground.” McCartney’s joyous “Coming Up,” the live version with his exhilarating Little Richard gardening metaphor: “Like a flower!”

My first published short story was called The Rites of Spring. It appeared in the spring of 1984, I was 24. I can never repudiate it, but, good God, I somehow managed to pack every literary baseball cliché there ever was into five pages. Perhaps that’s why Hollywood never telephoned me about acquiring the screen rights. I reread it the other day, took a pause from puttering around the basement checking for a glistening pool or the tell-tale rug-damp stain of snowmelt seepage because I worry about the ancient integrity of the Crooked 9’s foundation. I should’ve put that reading exercise off until next fall because I died a little bit.

Back then I loved baseball as much as I loved the Rolling Stones. I no longer pay attention to the game as I did, largely because the Montreal Expos (1969-2004) no longer exist, AAA Pacific Coast League baseball pulled out of Alberta ages ago and the current independent league in the province has withered through two pandemic-induced silent springs. However, old habits die hard. Every year around this time, spring training, I make a conscious effort to read a book about baseball. And my Montreal Canadiens winter outdoor chore ball cap gets switched out for a genuine baseball one.

Canada geese are returning to town as have our folk art wrought iron birds to the front porch. I enlisted a neighbour to help me move Ann’s three massive, soil-filled terracotta flowerpots down from their winter shelter under the eaves. The hirsute, russet 007 doormat (I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Bond…) has been replaced by a Stones tongue (Can’t you hear me knocking?). There’s a bench, a couple of folding chairs and even an extra ashtray for casual visitors – most of whom don’t smoke. I need to swab the slate tiles on the porch. And I need, like Van Morrison, to clean our windows inside and out.

At this time of year, once the clocks have sprung forward, Ann and I chip ice and shovel water; we are too impatient to await the might of the sun. Sure, I’m upbeat now, yet I often complain about the Sisyphean nature of our work. (Sisyphus was a Greek king whose arrogance and presumptuousness so offended the gods residing atop Mount Olympus as to require punishment. His sentence was an eternity of futile labour, rolling a boulder uphill but never cresting the peak.)  The seasons are so fleeting. So much to do in so little time. Why rake leaves on a windy day or shovel snow during a blizzard? Why bother with anything? An old friend has gently reminded me of Albert Camus’s main thesis in translation or paraphrase: “We must assume that Sisyphus was happy.” Consequently, the work Ann and I have done to date and the work we’re preparing to do doesn’t seem quite so useless at all. In genuine, unadulterated and actual legacy fact, it feels great, trending upward to greater. Together we’ve made it through another winter; keep them coming.

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of comforting routine since 2013. My novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com to find your preferred format and retailer.