Look. We made it.

Six months of darkness. Scraping ice off the car at 6am. That one cold patch that always finds the back of your neck no matter how high you zip the jacket. Mittens lost forever between the couch cushions. Soup season stretched from October to whenever your mother stopped sending voice notes saying *"make sure you eat hot food, child."*

We made it.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a Trini living in Canada, the first warm day every year feels like getting paroled. You walk outside, the sun is doing the thing it actually used to do, and you remember — oh right. This is what life is supposed to be.

## The food shift hits different

In winter you cook because you have to. Heavy pot. Slow stew. Oxtail and split peas. Pelau on a Sunday. The kind of food that fills a kitchen with steam and a soul with regret that you don't live closer to a beach.

Now? Different energy. The pholourie comes out. Bake and shark mood arrives. Suddenly you want a tamarind chutney with a real kick. You're checking the freezer for that leftover bake from last Easter just in case. Watermelon and mango in May feels almost illegal, but here we are.

The grill goes on the balcony. Doesn't matter if you have a balcony — find a balcony. Or a friend's backyard. Or stand near someone else's BBQ and just exist in the smoke. This is the season for jerk pork, BBQ chicken with proper Swiss BBQ sauce, corn with butter and salt and lime if you're doing it right.

Pepper sauce comes off the shelf and stays on the table until October.

## The lime is mandatory

If you grew up Trini you know "liming" is a full lifestyle — not just hanging out, but the *art* of hanging out with absolutely zero agenda. Winter killed it. Spring brings it back.

Cherry Beach. Hanlan's. Woodbine. Wasaga if you're really committed. Even just somebody's driveway with a speaker and a cooler. The recipe is the same everywhere: people you love, food you can eat with your hands, a sound system that has been waiting all winter, and absolutely no plans to leave before sundown.

Soca on the speaker. Always.

## The countdown is on

Caribana starts building in June. By July the whole city is shaking. **Trinbago Toronto Festival** lands at Nathan Phillips Square the last weekend of August. The Grand Parade the Saturday of the Civic long weekend. Backyard cook-outs every weekend in between. By Labour Day you're already mourning summer ending and that's OK — that's the cycle.

But right now? Right now is the beginning. The part before anyone is tired. The bit where the city remembers it has a heartbeat.

So clean off the grill. Re-up on your seasoning. Buy the pepper sauce you ran out of in January and never replaced. Text the friend you said you would catch up with *"when it gets warmer."*

It got warmer.

We outside.

Winter Done. Now We Live.