December, to me, is the city.
Metal and cold. Closer to the North Pole than the Equator, its smoke billows in defiance to the natural cycle of this part of the earth. Skyscrapers rise like hundreds of middle fingers, flipping off the mountains to the west. The river cuts through the nucleus of it all, a flowing frozen this time of year. Its headwaters are just south of one of the largest expansions of ice in North America. That scene of majesty is less than three hundred kilometers away. Down here in the prairies, the river brings the life of the mountains to a reliant but indifferent population.
In the same skyline as grand mountains, these buildings- a quarter of them vacant, are an arrogantly obvious example of humanity's ability to displace and consume.
Cold and industrious as the city may be, its lack of color reveals specks of vibrancy that otherwise go unnoticed; small explosions of joy are bright beacons of light in a sea of snowy white. I like the city for this, the snippets of the warmth juxtaposed against cold-conducting metal. It only takes a curious stroll to see it everywhere. If we are willing and privy, it is all around us:
Determined to get some fresh air, a couple pushes their baby's stroller through a foot of snow on what they believe to be a sidewalk.
A woman spends her day in the cold, at the train station, passionately petitioning downtown Calgary to do their part in ending the regime of the Chinese Communist Party.
A man, carrying all of his belongings in a grocery bag, sits down near a street corner. He pulls a beer out of the grocery bag. As he's about to crack it, he sees a stranger waiting to cross the street. He asks the stranger if he'd like the beer.
Yes, these are delightful moments in a cold city, their value so much more obvious this time of year.
And have you ever dragged a cigarette in the cold? Or better yet, paired it not only with winter, but with a coffee too? The other day I just missed a late night train, and was rewarded twenty glorious minutes to savor an American Spirit in one numb hand, and a hot black coffee in the other. God damn!
The cold city also showcases the contrasts of society. Wealth is hurried and remote starts; often, it doesn't even wear a toque. Poverty, on the other hand, rides trains to nowhere all night. It is almost always wearing a toque. While one is warm on the inside of cold metal buildings, the other leans its back against the unforgiving exterior. What difference a wall makes.
The cold matters because anything that does not create warmth is easily identified as cold. Bullshit freezes over. And the buildings, arrogant as they may be, are important because they radiate the cold. When cold has somewhere to go it becomes grand. Cold vastness is grand. The Canadian Rockies, for example.
The city in the cold is a completely blank canvas, aggressively erased of warm hues or filler. All of a sudden, a stroller being pushed is vividly inspiring, and it becomes so much easier to appreciate how badass it is for a woman to spend a day advocating for a cause in no convenient way.
And someone with nothing giving up their last beer? Well that's just fucking awesome.
