First week of February and it's bitter cold and there's nothing to do about it. Just grin and bear it. Hunker down and get through it. 

My dreams have been wild and woolly and all about it sorting through conflict and guilt. But last night or I should say early in the morning just before rising I was blessed with a dream so fair that I had to blog about it. 

It was early in the racing season. People were unsettled and anxious to ship in and get going. Get the racing season going. But I am not. I always hang back and wait. It's way too cold. It's too hard on the horses and the people. Wait I always say; wait until the muscles in your back don't tighten up to a hard string, wait until you can relax and fill your chest with warm air. 

Everyone was bustling around me. Setting up. Erecting, cleaning, raking their sheds. I saw that arrogant bitch Gail C shipping in with her Florida ready horses. Hope that they get a real blast of cold air. That poor Tony (if he's still there) his reed thin body will get blown by the wintery blast. I, instead decided to take off. Suddenly the wind changed. From cold and dry a moist tropical heat blew up from God knows where probably hell it was so unusual. I thought the horses would break out in a sweat under their heavy winter blankets. I turned my back on the track and the business there and headed toward the city in the car. I descended down down the 27 then 427 then into the canyons of the city I kept going until I didn't recognize where I was. I had taken a turn - the scene shifts -I am at Bathurst and Vaughn and I'm heading into parts of the city so honeycombed and tight and unrecognizable to me I had only to go forward. The roads were rough and traversed by old railway ties and iron not used any more, streetcar tracks and some leftover cobblestone from the 50s maybe so unrecognizable it was to me. The wind was now warm and I threw off my hat and my shell and a layer of microfibre. I kept going found myself going the wrong way a couple of times everything was so different and chaotic and unfinished. I pushed the car forward. Looking to my right to the north I saw tall wood lattices erected covered with dead leaves and twine and winding tendrils. People were on ladders pulling off this stuff tossing it onto the strip of dry hard winter grass that bordered the road. The air blew warmer. They were laughing. Someone said they were getting ready for the spring feast. I was in "little Manilla". 

Scene changes and I'm on my bike. I haven't ridden a bike in at least 45 years. But I'm riding a bit shakily. A girl reports they are making wine for the fiesta. They are taking and stretching a shark swim bladder and shaping it into a round (am I making this up? It is already round) stretched balloon like container taut and dry like a piece of shiny metallic leather and filling it with this concoction made from herbs and leaves and wine and grapes and fruit. One after the other. Where are they getting these shark swim bladders from? But I'm in Little Manilla and I'm not asking any questions. The air is delirious with expectation and the warm humidity that comes with spring. What happened to February? What happened to the bite of the February wind?