Spring was breaking through in Lanark county. They say it bursts faster here, ecosystems croaking and blooming quickly and loudly. Wetlands splitting ice open faster than it can melt, peaks of wheat popping up from the earth like built fences. A cacophony of bird tweets making songs.
She had put stickers of silver on the windowsill to let the sun bounce off them, reflections of rainbows dancing in her kitchen while she prepared dinner.
She loved spring. The noise, the birth, the growth, the earth. She would breath in through her nose deeply and try to hold the damp scent in her mouth like gritted salt on her teeth.
Bird feeders went up. Scraps picked up from the lawn on the voyage in, one arm loaded with groceries, the other scooping down to grab a damped receipt from fall. Bikes were unmangled and set straight. Sweaters wrapped in the morning. Ripped off in the afternoon.
She fucking loved this time of year.
She was moving plants in her living room to reach new light. Her hand held high with the plant dangling, while her eyes followed the room. A pencil in her ear from a previous thought drawn out on paper, one sock under her arm without a place to live. Her eyes landed on the corner of the room and she snapped knowing that’s where the plant would go. The snap knocked the sock out of her arm, she left it abandoned on the ground where it would stay for some time.
Shawn entered the room, working in swirls around her. In and out of doors he went on his own mission, she knew nothing about. Out to the garage, into the truck, back into the house, onto the patio. He searched for his keys without asking her help.
She wandered into the kitchen to find the remnants of his coffee-making fiasco. Beans exploded, sugar on the counter in patterns like crop circles for her to decipher. She shook her head with a smile. What odds if his coffee is in a state, he brings her a steaming cup every morning. And until she met him, no one had ever shown up for her like that.
She took a sip of her now lukewarm coffee, and stood straight up in the sunlight. Peeking back at the hung plant, second guessing her choice.
Shawn came into the room. “Now where is it….” he trailed off. He came out of the bathroom with his warm coffee.
“I don’t care for puns,” he says to her.
“You don’t care for puns?” Her eyes widened in disbelief.
“No they aren’t funny.”
“What? But I use puns. I am a pun. I love puns. What are you trying to say to me here?”
“I prefer a higher form of comedy.”
His teasing giggles came out in shakes. His shoulders bobbing up and down. He loved when her reactions were so loud, so over blown. The disbelief she would have, the wide eyes, her French hands flapping up in the air. He lived for it.
“You’re not a pun,” he said.
“What?” The word came out of her in capital letters. His mouth wrinkled with a smile.
Nothing else matters now. She took a hand towel up in confusion, then feverishly threw it over her shoulder, then off, then back over. “What do you mean? That’s all I do. It’s who I am.”
“You’re so much better than a pun. You’re like an improv of genius. Words picking up off of others, volleying back and forth. An act like no other. A one upmanship of brilliance, without the cockiness or stupidity or cheesiness. Like a performance, a play on words with fluidity and meaning and reference. A ballet.”
She was a bit humbled by his response. She saw herself in this jagged, puny shape—not moving like water but unsteadily up and down on uneven rocks. She turned away, unable to hold the compliment because it was unknown to her. She took the dish towel from her shoulder and stood at the sink.
“Well I know what kind of bird I am.” she flipped back facing him.
His eyes look up at her. He swallowed his coffee and nodded, giving her the go ahead.
“I’d be a blue jay, all ratty and loud, bullying and frustrating and obnoxious. Chirp chirpin’.’ Peck Peckin.’”
He laid his coffee on the table behind him and chuckled.
“Oh dear no. You’re not a bluejay. They are too common. You see one once a day if you live around here,” his index finger made a circle in the air. “They have no distinctness, they are blunt and quick. They are all the same. You’re thoughtful and graceful. Rare and wonderful. Like an osprey. Powerful. Loud but in the right way, not like an explosion, like a wanted concert. It’s a beautiful moment when you see an osprey. You stop and point, stand and wait. A bluejay, you glance and forget.”
She stood akimbo now, dish towel caught between hand and hip. Mouth a gape. She wanted to fight him on it but she wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t being unkind. He was boisterously kind.
“Well I mean what about a tree? If I were a tree I’d be half tumbled over, with a branch pointing up making no sense, not even reaching for the sun. It’s hair all on end and confused about how it got there. I’d be sturdy and hardy and grown out of nothing, but knotty and barbed and craggy.”
He guffawed. His head was shaking back and forth.
“No no no no. You’re hardy. You can survive in anything. I’ll give you that but no.”
His hand on the handle of the coffee mug, both of their cups gone cold. He looked out at window in thought. Spring billowing around them, sheeps baaing in symphony, dragon flies swirling, purple petals inching out of hay like grass.
“A willow. Now that’s sturdy. It’s strong and bends with the wind. Taking in everything around himself. Curving to the needs of the forrest. Sheltering nature around it. A flurry of safety, that stands above all. A moment of awe.”
She felt tears rise up in her that she pulled back down. She was speechless now. Hands unclenched with a flapping dish towel. She saw the lone sock on the livingroom floor and pinched her eyes wondering how it got there.
“How you see me, it’s just. Well I don’t see it like that. I see corners and spikes and it’s off centered.”
“Sure, sure, but in the most magical way. It’s smooth and solid too.”
“Well,” she paused. “I think you may be the only person who loves me exactly as I am, you know?”
His eyebrows raised.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well you know I am also a sandy sandwich.”
Shawn curved his head towards her in confusion. “Please go on.”
She started making more coffee now, keeping her hands distracted.
“It’s like a sandy sandwich on the beach. You pack a load of sandwiches for the beach, then they get sand in ‘em. Some people hate them, real pissed that there is sand in their food. Others are so perished from their great day of swimming in the sun, it’s the best sandwich they’ve ever had. I’m a sandy sandwich.”
“Well now you know I like a sandy sandwich. I am happy to eat anything.”
She knew this to be true. She made him elaborate meals. Steaks with marbled fat, soups with tried and tested stalk and spices, homegrown garlic, rich cheeses and thick creamy sauces. She also served him frozen pizza and buttered toast, he had the same uneventful response every time. Whereas flavours landed in her mouth in an frenzied explosion, every taste hitting a thousand notes at once. Her body would sink into itself in joy and overstimulation. She would savour into the moment, moaning in delight. Slap her hands up high. He finished a meal while she still had the first forkful rolling around her tongue.
He stood up and his pocket jingled. The keys were in there the whole time.
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