The humidity would have gotten to me today, if it hadn't been for the big gusty winds that were blowing up straight from the Gulf of Mexico. It's where the weathercaster said they were from, anyway. Seemed like a pretty good haul for those winds, if all they were going to do what take a hold of car doors when they were opened and fling them violently into the sides of the cars next to yours. They kept themselves nicely intact, all that way north, ripping through the trees and kicking up dust from the dry ground, but they were unwanted. The only thing they weren't were - which made us thankful - is they weren't north winds and we weren't talking about wind chill factors. Even with these winds, we were sweating our asses off so, what little complaining we were doing, we were doing it while wearing sunglasses and adding to the tans that we started on over the weekend.
These could have been the howling winds that are held off in Kathryn Calder songs. The full-time member of the New Pornographers and Victoria, British Columbia resident sometimes confuses us with the winds that she's playing with, the ones that she pulls back and flings toward us. They all seem to be packed with wildness, or the sentiment that they aren't going to be contained. If they reach a wall, they'll hit and go around or over, but will never lessen in their force.
Her voice, which replaced Neko Case's in the New Pornographers when Case decided to focus almost exclusively on her solo career, is a spectacularly lilting and blooming thing, given to hugging and kissing, as well as to making room for nightlights that are meant to read by and little else. It's a damp bay of fuzzy light - warm as a sweater - that reaches out to a portion of a dark room. She sings, "I'm waiting for your arms," but those arms are always going to find that shaft of faint light, no matter where she decides to let it fall. They'll brave all conditions to seek it out.