From the moment the boat is on the rack, hefted on top of the car, poised on its side and strapped in with strained precision, tied down and steadied for the movement of the road, I’m at peace. I know where I’m going. Once the formalities have been parted with – the strain of lifting and the gleam of the sun in my eyes as I slowly twist the straps into place – I’m ready to float.

Lifting anchor is as simple as putting both legs in the kayak, straightening them out and letting arms – warm from the unusually warm spring – control the work. The water spreads out ahead, a horizon of motion captured only by the river’s banks. One paddle breaks the tension – gently plopping, straining against the force of the current and passing through the weight of so many hydrogen atoms. Oxygen atoms, strung together, turned from air into fluid. From one necessity of life to another.

The science that causes surface tension helps keep us afloat, with help from physics, our hollowed out shell of molded green plastic beginning to move with the water, giving in to nature and slowly becoming part of it. The paddles are swiftly made worthless, useful for steering and sudden movement but completely arbitrary to the relaxation of being sent for a ride, kayaking in style, one in front, one in back, my field of vision widened to 180 degrees – both sides of the river, meeting in the middle where Kerrie’s head bisects my sight and serves as a center of attention.

It’s warm; warmer than on dry land. But the water is cool – cold to the touch, picked up in the wind and deposited on our slowly roasting skin. The ability to sunburn is heightened when the sun’s rays are bounced back off of the water, unable to break the surface, forbidden from floating along with us and cursing us as it makes this discovery, sentencing us to a few days of dry, taut epidermal pain.

My sandals are wet. We paddle for something to do – to make our actions seem more human. Less divine. My legs start to bead up with the water falling off of the paddles, dropping onto my water bottle and reminding me to drink. The water rushes by, as does a forest that’s usually hidden from us. On this river that encircles our city, surrounded by asphalt and buildings and commerce and life that breezes by too fast, a secret wildlife exists. No one else is on the river. Aside from the handful of people that jog by, we could be floating down any river in the quickly disappearing wilderness.

It’s quiet enough to hear centuries of use, to witness early settlers coming across the river and relocating camp, deciding that here, where the river splits and creates a city-wide island of sorts, is where life should go on. It’s amazingly silent at times. Other times, we’re brought back to the present. We’re floating down a thin line. One side forces us to remember our place, to remember we’re in a city and that this water is not ours. The other tells us to just let go. The river will show us where to go.

Floating down the river is a sensation more different than anything. Unlike a lake, which is self-contained and close-minded, a river flows continuously, fully conscious of its direction but unceasingly moving, always searching out for the ending – the peace that comes from completion. You’re able to let go, so feel weightless, moving along and becoming part of the motion, altering it to your needs but never affecting the overall symbiotic relationship between water and weight – between the need to flow and the ability to move.

And then, in no time, we’re getting out, setting the anchor again with a foot full of mud, traveling around the city to get the boat back on the car, straining into the sun. We’re suddenly aware of all we’d left behind – the streets, the smells, the stifling closeness of everything. We want back on the river, but we know it’s not where we belong. We’re stuck here, on dry land, forever.

Or, at least, until next weekend, when the anchor comes up and both feet are free again.

The smell of roasting carbon, attaching to your clothes, being carried around with you for hours, reminding everyone of a dark campground – the damp coldness that surrounds you in your chair as you poke away at the embers. It’s the smell of summer, matched perfectly with cut grass and cold beer. It’s what deep dark brown would smell like, the rigid hexagons of organic material just before it’s torn apart by heat and energy, the smell of natural chemistry, of destruction, of fresh life.

It’s a smell that you can taste, literally, charred into the flesh of whatever you’re cooking, darkening the corners and creating roadmaps across the front and back. Your mouth salivates. Your eyes start to water. Your entire body rushes to help put out the fire, sweating and creating moisture in a failed effort. It’s hot. It smells that way – like heat, like the most pure form of cooking ever discovered. The basics. Food. Fire. Smoke.

Is there anything more serene than staring into a black Weber grill, watching the charcoal change from black to grey, orange to red? Is there anything that proves the existence of warm days more than the warm, inviting smells of barbecuing?

It’s near perfect, if you ask me.

Isn’t it funny how completely serene the first snowfall of the year can be? It’s so fresh and clean and beautiful, yet we will – without doubt – curse it’s existence only a few days later, if it hasn’t melted and disappeared, remembered only as a memory; as an aberration of our unusually warm October.

I woke this morning and looked out into the dark street to find a barrage of snowflakes, drifting towards the ground with reckless abandon – a deluge of white; a downpour of winter, albeit a few weeks early. It instantly put me in a good mood. It instantly took all of my worries away. I just laid in bed and stared. I couldn’t help it.

Snowfall is always wonderful. A steady rain falls constantly and makes a comforting noise, but it has nothing on the comfort of a sudden snowfall. Personally, I find it best at night, when the white snow stands out against the darkness of night, blotting out everything but itself, sheltered from the sun and prepared to set in, untouched for the next few hours.

This dark snowfall – be it an early morning before Daylight Savings Time or an evening bluster during prime time – always seems to bring back a flood of memories, mostly centering on long night drives, the haze of the lights on either side of the street, the sudden blinking glow of a snow plow. It reminds me of living in Minnesota, where I would spend late nights learning about life and standing outside to get a breath of fresh air.

I can smell the sudden rise in car exhaust, as if the snow pushed the sensory levels to 11 and turned up the combustion. I can feel each flake melt against my face, creating a clammy sheen as if I had just finished a rigorous workout. My breath shows itself, and everything is flecked with a dandruff like coating. Usually, all I can do is stare straight up, feeling the slight prick of frozen water enter my eye.

Eventually, we begin to hate the snow. It becomes dirty; slushy and messy to a fault and unbelievably cumbersome. It causes accidents, and it chills us to the core. We dread the windy gust of frozen sleet that meets us as we open a door to the outside. We bundle up and prepare to be proactive, to battle winter before it has a chance to tear our warmth away.

But on mornings like this – when flakes steadily, but gently, pummel the barely-alive grass and the cold concrete – it’s something magical. Virgin snow is easily one of the most beautiful sights ever encountered; the way it coats the bare trees, and the way it wipes away the color palate and begins again with a white, clean slate.

It’s refreshing, and a little exhilarating. It’s everything that’s good about winter.