snow on the trees / Pointe St-Charles

It was snowing yesterday evening when I went out for a walk. Still snowing when I stopped reading at midnight. Even in my sleep I knew it kept snowing because the house felt ever more cushioned. Et voilà, here's what I see out my study window this morning. 

Snow on the trees. Brick row houses across the street. 
That particular group of houses are painted a colour called brick red--sort of like the difference between a real cherry and a maraschino cherry. Painting is a cheap way to freshen up brick that's aged and beginning to chip and flake. The houses were built 120 years ago by Irish settlers who were nostalgic for home. Brick row houses with one family living upstairs, one family downstairs. Families with twelve children. R and I are extravagant, living in our house alone. 
On the window ledge are stones and bits of pottery I've kept. For whatever reason. The ceramic tiles were bought in Tunisia. The glass bottle is a gift from a friend who brought it home from Ecuador. And there's that funny pot I made when I took a pottery course in 1973. It was the first summer I lived with a man and although I was glad to be away from my family, in retrospect I wish I'd had a little more imagination about how to support myself. I had a long summer of reading Margaret Laurence, Marian Engel, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Gabrielle Roy... Women growing ever more conscious of their unrest with domesticity. Me too. 

Clearly, fixing the back gate onto the alley is not a priority.  
I should be studying Spanish. Exam today.