Again it comes around to another year, another winter semester. A break that sped past me in a number of places. airports, my family home, the living room of a high school friend, and caged (the restless animal that I am) in the white truck that used to be my Uncle's. As usual, I took very few photos. One of the photos is of Weinmaster Park, bathed in a cold evening light that was soft and purple as if the light cast were shining through translucent lilac petals, one meandering set of footprints between trees, whoever had left them having to trek through a deep carpet of snow. There is a few photos from that same night of my sister in a Santa hat with a long black jacket on her shoulders and some of her friends (all of whom I have grown to appreciate and cherish as fondly as if they were my own) walking in front of me and set against a vast and starless gray nighttime sky. The last is photo from inside the house on the farm in which my uncle passed away, now subject to renovation by my parents, who will likely be moving in before fall this year. It is a photo I took in the kitchen, a view of orange wooden cabinets and cupboards and cream color countertop that surround a window looking out onto a porch currently enclosed by a terrific and immense orange insulated tarp. The camera, for some reason I (not a camera expert) am not privy to, transformed the tarp and tools that lay beyond the glass into a dark red glow casting in black the menacing shadow of a skeletal creature sulking behind the glass.

Me and my sister have no immediate cousins on our Dad's side. We are 'The Kids' (despite me being 23 and her being 20) and the way my Mom spun it, it seemed like they needed us back home this time of year to keep everyone in decent spirits. Our family was already quite small, and in the past three years became very suddenly a lot smaller, quieter. Grandma lit two candles, one for Auntie, the other for Uncle, then we had our kutya, our cabbage rolls, our perogies with onions, and our fish. Every year Grandma insists that we take two hours to eat, this year she pressed us again, two hours at the very least. Kudos to her, supper really did take longer this year. Me and my father sat in front of empty plates within twenty minutes or so but, patient as vultures, we waited for the rest to finish, washing dishes and lingering in the kitchen. Supper lasted an entire hour.

I received that evening a George Foreman grill, and many a month's worth of individually vacuum sealed meat portions of every variety found while clearing out Auntie's apartment that will be much appreciated by me this semester. As I write, two chicken breasts, pink and genuinely quite massive, thaw in my fridge. In my freezer lie countless food items sent back home with me, made by Mom and by Grandma and collected from the apartment, kept frozen by the temperature outdoors in the box of the truck. This semester I can keep my cash tucked tight in my wallet, let the satisfaction that follows my hunger come also with a bittersweet arm of gratitude extending just about 900 km back east into the prairies, and find the time to call my Grandma to tell her when I've spread her raspberry jam on my toast and make enough chicken pasta to make it up to my boyfriend who found himself alone and at work on Christmas eve.

Meow. I Already miss the land of the living skies.

-Tucker

P.S. The Silkscreen prints have come home with me and now, all that's left is to find a place near here that has large format scanners. I also need a haircut.