Today I celebrated le redoux by walking to the edge of the forest (Wikipedia helpfully suggested that the English word for it is thaw, or January thaw, which seems fitting since we’re still in January, other synonym may be a warm spell). I keep wondering if there is a word in Kanyenké’ha or Anishnabemowin for this short reprieve between wintery chill and what it may sound like. I hope that if there is such word, it was not lost, that there are people who remember it and pass it on.

I realize now that I do not have a favourite season, probably never had one. I have many favourite periods, intersections of time and space: le redoux in the middle of cold Canadian winter, the time in the early spring when the snow crusts over and the sap is running in the trees, the short three days in may when crab apple trees suddenly cover themselves in pink petals, the sunset of a very hot day on the Almanare beach, the time of chestnuts blooming in Kyiv, autumn between late September and the end of October.

What I love about the winter forest is how very few people are there. It seems empty at the first sight, but of course it is not empty. Nor is it silent. The trees groan, screech and whisper with the wind. I hugged a tall and slender tree and I felt if shudder and move and for a moment I thought I heard something similar to a heartbeat.