Sometimes.

I still need you.

A year ago, to almost the day I fell in love. In love with a song that I can't seem to get from my head or my heart. It is not a great one, not particularly uplifting but none the less it seems to cling, to comfort, to soothe the rough edges.

These days I work on the second floor of a building in a room with huge wide windows. In front of those windows are trees. This, in most cases wouldn't be particularly interesting to me, and it is likely not interesting at all to you. Today was different. Between cleaning out tiny tea cup after tiny tea cup I started to notice a crow in the tree. In her beak was a large twig, or a small branch depending on how you look at it. She spent the better part of the afternoon trying to arrange it on the branches of our tree, placing the framework for a nest, for her home. A few times she dropped it, I would look out and she would be gone, only to return moments later with the same stick held within her beak. I was mesmerized by her persistence, by her creativity in finding just the right spot. I was momentarily in love with this nature in the middle of downtown. I was jealous that she seemed so busy and passionate and that at that moment I was simply cleaning tiny tea cups.

Her renovations also made me homesick. This crow had found just the spot to settle down and build. I was unsure. I woke up this morning with heart ache heavy for mountains and prairies and long black highways snaking through ranch land. I could taste my almond milk latte from Beano (scratch that, if I could only have one thing from Beano the ginger hot chocolate and chocolate espresso milkshake would have to battle it out for my love). The air is just different at home. Life is just different I guess. We haven't had a decent sunset here in a couple days and I am starting to pine for the evening Calgary light. Ever falling head over heels for landscape and sky.

So that's it. Monday. Crows, home-ache, heart-skipped-a-beat.

At this moment from where I sit none of it seems real.

Tonight I miss the sky.

I went to university out East, or central Canada as Easterners call it... well and those from central Canada. Pretty much anyone not from Alberta and BC. It was there that I learned about Mycenaean pottery, boxed wine, and living with 5 other university students. It was also where I learned to appreciate the wonders that Western Canada offers. I grew up falls, winters, springs in Calgary and spent my summers in various small towns on the coast. Growing up my parents would say "look at how beautiful the mountains are! Look at the ocean! Look at the sky!" Though not often at the same time. I never really got it until I came home from  school for Thanksgiving of first year and suddenly I was blown away by them. I couldn't get enough and soon spent too much time away from school and outside, home, west.

There is nothing like the light in Calgary, especially in the evening. There is nothing like the Alberta sky.  Cerulean is the only colour that comes close. Expansive is an understatement. When I am away it is the thing that I miss. That tugs at my heart and draws me home. Tonight I miss the sky.