Saturday, September 18, 2010

September Air

When I walk down sidewalks now, autumn, true autumn in this city is Thin Air, is about writing, words, and a clean slate, a time to be less small and more brave. The air is different, catches you, wakes you up. Our pendulum days that chill you to the bone but for mugs of tea, and the was-just-wearing a sarong-last-week, but-I-didn't-get-to-Gimli-yet, frost-could-wreck-the-last-stalks-of-rhubarb, I-have-no-idea-where-my-winter-coat-is-and-I-refuse-to-find-it, kind of cold. The kind of air that only lasts a few breaths of days, before winter hits and we're on to other things, survival. The air where for a few days our world seems suspended.

September. Pull on your wool sweater. Lock the door behind you. Step into the chilly evening, already surprisingly dark. Not in too much of a rush. Feel crisp, clear air through you. Breathe in memory, exhale present.

Head over to Main Stage.

I remember my first Thin Air: 2006. I had just moved to Winnipeg and had only been here a month, and I knew exactly one person in the city. I didn't know anyone in the writing community, but back east Anne Simpson had tipped me off about the existence of Winnipeg's writers' festival. I came across one of the glossy, free programs and that was that. I couldn't tell you what writers I saw at Main Stage that week the first year. I was just happy to be somewhere, literally in from the cold, and listen to someone speaking their own words to a warm audience. I could sit at the back with my toque pulled over eyebrows, drink my glass of white, wear an ugly plaid shirt from the 90s, and no one minded. I didn't have to say anything. I just had to be there. That's something, and it felt pretty important, good, hopeful. For someone who felt like she had no place in this city, for one week out of that year I had one.

All those years we groan about the end of summer, the sadness in the pit of stomach, the coming of September, school, whatever that might mean for you... maybe that's still there a bit.... But one of the best things I've learned in Winnipeg so far is that September doesn't have to be a time of endings necessarily; it is one of beginnings.

Thin Air had a hand in turning that one over in my head for me, drawing me in and linking me with this city when it could've been easier to leave, head for higher, warmer ground.

The air is pretty damn good here, I'd say.

What is it to you, September air?

Hope to see you at the festival!

**

Stacy drove to Winnipeg in two days and five hours from Clydesdale, Nova Scotia. She only planned to stay for a year, but it has been four already, because this city keeps you, holds you. Though she works at a corporate publishing company, she has learned about writing, art, urban living, praying mantis kung fu, cycling, goddesses, and the middle while here. She hopes to figure something out about preserving, wool, gentleness, Mandarin, and movement. And, always, poetry. For the duration.

4 comments:

  1. This will be my first Thin Air festival. I missed it last year & was determined to be a part of this year's celebration. A week or so ago, I picked up the program, snugged into the couch at Mondragon, excited to be working on a story, and was happily circling the events I wanted to take in when I got the call about my grandmother's stroke.

    Today, the day of her funeral I felt deep sorrow and loss. I wandered, confused through a campground, wondering at all that's happened. I found friends and was reminded with every kind word that sometimes words are all we have to offer each other. Stories, memories, thoughts, & feelings. I felt loved & held with every condolence. We are a community of dreamers & poets, holding each other close even when we sit alone, bonded by the unspeakable things we are trying to share with each other.

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  2. We all have our own stories, and so often need to find ways to share them, express them, find words for them, draw them into form... I am glad you're going to the festival, Kat... I hope it holds you warm.

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  3. September air is mittens, toques, soups, and squash. I do not know too much about writing, so I do hope to learn a thing or two at the festival this year. So that i have something more to say other than long johns and wool socks. And, oh yeah, my winter jacket is in your basement.

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  4. Sometimes long johns and wool socks say it all; saggy wool socks with the red stripe around the tops, gray long johns that ride way above trouser waistline. And, um, you'll definitely need your winter coat by October, m'dear, maybe even by the time this festival ends.

    Also, I bet the squash know a poem or two...

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