The Seasonal Learning Curve of a New Canadian

September 15.

The fresh Toronto summer is settling into the chill of fall. The air pinches my cheeks pink when I bike to campus and High Park. 

I skype with my mother to geek out over the any-day-now foliage. “They’re a little yellow! I think! Up at the top!” Then I speak with my best friend Lisa. A fashionista who's just spent months striving to sashay through the muggy swarm of Manhattan, she wistfully lists the objects of her autumnal affections:  “Boots. Sweaters. Scarves. Bangs that don’t plaster to my forehead.” I've fled north and escaped the height of a similarly wretched summer in D.C., and commiserate even while I exult in the cool breeze flowing over the city and into my east-facing window.

Sign off. Tea time. My new roommate Aziza, M.A. student at O.I.S.E. and all around lovely person, is in the kitchen probably also making tea. “Hello Aziza! Why am I in such a good mood? Oh, I just chatted with Lisa. We were saying we're so excited it's fall!”

I’m not sure if she is holding something, but if she is, she drops it (probably just a spoon onto the counter, but still with dramatic effect) and turns. Almost a head shorter than me and a hundred pounds soaking wet, her usually cheerful face is wearing an expression I haven’t seen on her yet. Her delicate eyebrows are endeavoring to glower and can’t quite manage it. But then she speaks, and her voice is steely.

“DON’T. SAY. THAT.”

“What?”

“WE DON’T SAY THAT.”

“What??”

“That summer is over!”

Now that she’s scowling at me, I reflect that I have noticed a particular refrain in the weather-centered small talk in Toronto’s cafés and shops since my arrival. “It’s beautiful out there, eh? Well, enjoy it, it won’t last much longer!”

How gloomy, I think, taking my tea up onto the roof. It’s like the whole city belongs to House Stark: winter is coming. As if the season is an adversary against whom there is no recourse. Aren't Canadians supposed to enjoy the cold?

February 8.

I know nothing.