Years Later

Well, this space has been quiet for a long time.  I took a break from blogging over the year I spent living the gypsy life across B.C., landing permanently on Haida Gwaii in the fall of 2014.  Now I'm back blogging at jacquielanthier.com/blog.  I'm currently working as a teacher-on-call and outdoor educator on Haida Gwaii, bought a house with my husband in Port Clements (whom I met almost 4 years ago in Gold Bridge!), and am reworking my first book this winter to come out in 2017 in print, The River Home: Stories from the Fraser River Basin.  I hope to include some stories from my time living in the Bridge River Valley, especially of the animal encounters (remember the grizzly, Cinnamon Crunch, who lived in my yard for many weeks one winter?).

Thanks for following along and I hope to see you over at jacquielanthier.com!  When you get there, please subscribe to receive posts straight to your inbox.  The sign-up is at the bottom of the page.

Sitting under the oak tree in our yard. 

Departure

As the song goes, "all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go". Though I'm not standing outside of anyone's door waiting to say goodbye. This makes it easy to go! I've got the car packed up with full camping gear and a stove, my guitar, blank notebooks for writing, painting supplies, backpacking supplies, even a hoola hoop, just in case.

This morning I take off up to spend some time in the Cariboo region: Horsefly, Williams Lake, Wells. All places I have heard hold a core of artistic types, places where I've got connections with like-minded folks. There's the Arts on the Fly festival in Horsefly first. I'm volunteering for a friend who runs the kitchen: free festival ticket, free food, good way to meet people. Then I'm a free spirit for a week before meeting a friend in the Yalakom before heading off into the mountains on a three-night backpacking trip. We plan on going to the same area where I was in the wilderness on a three-week Outward Bound course ten years ago. Seems a fitting way to begin my year as a traveler throughout B.C. Some time for reflection and reminiscence in the high alpine meadows. That course was instrumental in putting me back in touch with the natural world in a way I hadn't been in years. I hadn't even known the connection was missing until suddenly there it was, and I knew I could never let it go again.

Well, I'm off. I'll be in touch when I can though I may not be around internet much. I'm back in Vancouver for a quick one-day turnaround on July 29 before heading down the Fraser River again until August 25. Lucky me :)

Happy summer everyone! The next adventure begins.

Transition

One week ago Shirley and I pulled into the driveway at my parent's North Vancouver house after five hours on the road, her red pickup truck and my RAV4 packed to the rafters with my things. One week ago I left Gold Bridge on the start of an adventure with an unknown destination, full of emotion and excitement. Some more tears as we made the trip over the dusty Hurley, periodically stopping to check on the load as it was jostled by the rough ruts in the logging road.

We unpacked as hurriedly as possible so that she could turn around to get home again, and I spent the next days sorting through all that I have amassed while taking breaks to participate in some writing, reading, playing the guitar.

I sit here this evening in the dimming summer light with the house to myself as the dishwasher hums away. Robins and chickadees belt out their songs from the backyard bramble of bushes and forest, and a plane flies high overhead. It seems like there is always a plane. Always something flying through the city soundscape whenever I take a moment to pause and listen. The days are awash with the sounds of human activity, the sounds of a mechanized life. It's amazing how sensitive I have become to the noise of this place after finally adjusting to the quiet of such a small town. The quiet which at first seemed so empty and forlorn. I miss the river meeting my ears from the throat of the valley, but I know it will still be there when I return to visit.

Thankfully my parents have been away during this stay here, and so I was able to leave streams of boxes lining the hallways in wait for even more sorting and culling: what will I need access to over the next year? what can be permanently stored until I find a new home? what can I give away?

I've tried to fold my items as neatly as possible into a house already filled up with things. Tucking boxes into the corners of the storage room, sliding clothes into the inches of available closet space in my old bedroom, sparingly spreading a few things into a couple of vacant drawers. I want to make it easy for my parents to have my things here, because otherwise it'll be a storage locker. I am thankful to have this place to come back to, the place of my childhood. I will be able to do a load of laundry in between jaunts around the province, to have a few square meals with some denomination of my family, and switching out seasonal sporting gear before heading back out onto the road again.

I had a bit of culture shock in my first few days here, which surprised me at first, but in retrospect should have been expected after living for years in the type of environment I was immersed in. This place seemed tinged with a golden glow. New, exciting, different, full of green, clean, well-manicured streets. The cars so clean I could see my reflection in them. Nothing out of place.

After sorting and storing and boxing and labeling all day I spent the long evening hours just walking around, picking my way over my old routes to school, noticing where shortcuts had grown over into a dense tangle of forest, noticing the difference in coastal and interior vegetation. I strolled past where friends used to live, staring into people's open windows and doors, getting a peek at their lives, at their homes. I'm fascinated by it all.

I have been going to the forest often as well to walk and keep the connection to the wild growth of nature, escaping for brief interludes from a view completely made up of landscaping and pavement. And today it seems to have settled in more deeply that right now I don't have a place that is my home, but I do have this place to live and to come back to pause, and for that I am incredibly thankful. And perhaps in this search I will find that the feeling of home is something I carry within me. That if I take the time to look deeply within the walls of my soul I will find it housed there, just as radiant as the summer sunlight streaming through the branches of a forest canopy.

Haze

Night has just fallen, and a dark indigo blue hangs behind in the clouds. Rain off and on today, as with many recent days. It mirrors my own back-and-forth, my own wayward emotions, the minutes full of movement. It has been nuts. Year-end mixed with leaving and packing up all the belongings sprawled out over a three-bedroom house. 

I've given all my shelves away, the wardrobe that weighed fifty pounds that I shipped back from Australia, various chairs, patio furniture, the sturdy table from my art room, boxes and boxes of clothes. It feels good to get rid of some things, and I've had enough experience coming upon things secondhand to know that I can get more when and if I should need them. Trying to go as light as possible, hoping it will all fit into my car and a friend's truck, and then my parent's garage. I wonder how long they will let me store things there without complaint. Feel very fortunate to have that option rather than having to spend money on a storage locker somewhere. A third truck is available for the move tomorrow, and I might need it. I also feel fortunate to have friends who are willing to take the time out of their busy lives to help me move. Big dinner out at the Mineshaft Pub tomorrow night. Makes me think of when I first drove up here with my sister Stephanie. It was June 2011 and I had applied for the job even though I had never visited the town. It seemed surreal then, like we had stepped into another timezone. Back in time. Now living here feels completely second nature, as natural as dreaming. The roads used to seem foreign and vacant but I became used to that too--to the flow of life here--to my own space, vast and empty and pregnant with silence. 

July is fairly breezy in terms of plans. I was planning on rushing off to the Oregon Coast to surf, but now that I plan on taking a self-imposed sabbatical I think I will wait to surf when the waves are bigger and crowds are thinner in the fall and winter. I might actually spend a week or two in North Vancouver, something I have not done since I moved rural almost three years ago. The thought actually excites me, as I know it will be temporary and I can re-charge with a heavy dose of city stimulation. The arts! How I miss the arts living here!

I have a number of things on the list for July, like going through all the material that I have written to find some common threads of story. Writing. Daily writing. Playing the guitar on a blanket at a park in the sun, grass between my bare toes. Going to art shows, to music shows, walking the busy streets where no one knows who I am, where I came from, or where I am going. A contrast before I move along to explore some different small towns. Nothing as small as Gold Bridge though I am sure.

We had our year-end ceremony this week. I tried not to cry, but as my principal was talking and thanking me for all of my hard work my lip started quivering, and then that was it. I kept it under control, not the gasping-for-air sobbing but instead a steady sniffle and tearing. The parents and community members in attendance gave me a standing ovation. It is such a wonderful feeling to be so appreciated and to feel like I will be missed as much as I will miss this place. 

Couple more tears as I closed up the school this afternoon, locking my keys inside so that they are there on the desk when the other teacher opens up the doors for the fall with her second set. The culmination of a distinctive era in my career, in my life, really. But I'll be back. This place has a way of weaving itself into the heart, and there's still much exploring I'd like to do around here.

The last weeks of school were great, but I am absolutely exhausted. Full days of work and then full evenings of sorting, packing, moving furniture to houses, moving plants, moving. Many experiential lessons and such, but the time is wandering on and I still have things to pack and a last bath in the giant soaker tub to succumb to. I am sure going to miss this place. The people, the school, the students, the history, the walks, this house. But it is time to seek somewhere new. A new place to call home. It's strange to think about all the possibilities. For a while I am going to gypsy around to see what my options are. And then some new road will reveal itself. It always does. 

Solstice

It's rainbow weather out today. Rainy with the sun shining, casing the raindrops like a dust cloud over the ridge beyond my house. And it's warm--a welcome shift after the wet, chilly weather of the past week. I've been watching Pioneer Paul's chimney to see if it's reasonable to be lighting a fire. Feels strange to be burning wood into mid-June and most of the nights its warm enough upstairs where my bedroom is to forgo the effort of chopping more kindling to get a steady blaze going.

I've been sparing in the updates lately as things bump up against themselves in my year-end schedule. Only ten days left until I move from here, and there is a lot to get organized before then. I've been picking away at it in the moments between work and visits with friends I might not see again for a while, and it feels satisfying to watch things slowly start to disappear from shelves as they go into boxes.

This week at school we had our last tea party. It was a "low tea" put on for students by a few dedicated community members, and one lady even brought all of her fancy china to the school to spruce things up. Students showed the guests the movies they have been making and gave a couple of presentations, and afterwards we built a labyrinth on the edge of the schoolyard with a local expert. Last week we painted rocks to go in the labyrinth, and our guests brought special rocks from their collections to add to the creation.

Students also got the chance to drive some serious remote control vehicles brought over by a new friend. These cars were nothing like I have seen before: doing flips, spin-outs and crashing into each other with no problem. It was certainly a highlight for them.

We have been busily working on our memory books and on wrapping up units for the end of this week. I've been writing report cards all day, and after being indoors looking at the sunshine I had to get outside.

I took Hunter along for a walk on the shoulder of the highway. We have been walking a lot lately as I try to visit some of the favourite places I discovered with Sanford. A handful of cars passed us, Hydro trucks on their way out of town for the weekend, cars I didn't recognize on their way in. I wanted to walk down by the river, but the mosquitoes were so bad as we veered towards it that we walked along the old highway instead for a while until we could cut back up onto the pavement to take us home.

I've been writing a lot as well, in addition to reading. Spent many hours last weekend putting together my application for that writing program in Banff. Now the wait.

Barry and I have been out on a few horseback rides too, meandering through the criss-crossed trails through the forest thick with birdsong and rustling leaves. I was able to catch "my horse" which we named Tyax last year after we couldn't remember his original name. He is still young and "needs some miles put on him" as Barry says, and last weekend he gave a couple of bucks at twigs jabbing him in the side as they flicked from my stirrups.

I've been spending some time with friends up in Bralorne and out at Gun Creek Road too. I want to pack in as much as possible before heading away from here. Next Friday is my last day at the school, and then on Saturday I plan on packing up my vehicle and a friend's truck before driving my things down to Vancouver on Sunday.

Not sure what I am going to do with the blog, but I do want to keep a line of communication open to share my adventures with those who are interested. I'll let you know my plans.

I'm sure going to miss this place. The rain has let up again, and already the concrete outside my window is dry. A cat is running by the pond. Think I'll get to packing and then will have a little fire on my own to celebrate solstice and take in the darkening sky. Happy summer solstice everyone, wherever this may find you...

Lilac

The lilacs are out, brought here many years ago and planted by the settlers who homesteaded, etching their existence in the mountains in a time before reliable roads, bridges, a post office, telephones. They come back year after year, fragrant as ever, fluffing themselves purple, white and green with the life they have nursed underground all winter long.

And with them, the butterflies, the hummingbirds, the sweet scent of late spring placed in a jar in the centre of my kitchen table.

This way and that way...

June 8^th. Time feels like it’s compressing, but it often does in June at the end of a school year, when all the loose ends scream for completion and all of a sudden there seems not enough time to cover what is left. I seem to be going through a time of hefty appreciation for my time in this place, which feels refreshing and rejuvenating. 

The students and I started going through our photos from the year to work on building our memory books. It’s good practice for me too, as I can see how much we have done together over the year.

Sometimes working alone makes me feel like I am not doing enough. Like I’m all out of ideas, like there was more I could have done. Maybe it always feels like that in education. Always more to do.

When I was completing my education degree one of the academic advisors for my program reminded us that education is one of those professions that will take everything you give it, and even when it has sucked you dry it will still want more. Luckily I save enough time for myself to be healthy at the start of most days, but like the students I walk into the room carrying the baggage of my out-of-school life. I’m just better at pushing mine aside, at providing a safe place for students to unpack theirs, sort through things, examine. 

This was the absolute right place for me to land early in my career, when I wanted nothing more than to plug into work and into my own writing. It was a place to explore my own soul, to feel what it’s like to live in a kind of mountain isolation. I wanted to leave the city, and leave it I certainly did. 

I’ve always been one to test boundaries. In high school I was the student with my hand up asking “why do we have to know this?” about everything, driving the teachers crazy with questioning and then with complacency. Their answers about why were never good enough. Most of the time they didn’t even know.

I find myself still asking “why?” about some of the mandated curriculum, though as a government-funded teacher I am expected to give students an education that mirrors the Prescribed Learning Outcomes as outlined by the Ministry of Education while also subscribing to their personal needs and interests. Now, at this point, with a small sum of money stacked in my bank account, I can finally afford to do some research to see what is out there in the form of alternative options.

As a high school drop-out myself, I can empathize with the “so what?” attitude of many of today’s youth. I did end up going to university. First I had to upgrade my high school courses in my early twenties, making my way through courses I could have completed in my teenage years for free. That was certainly not the recommended way of doing things, but it was what worked for me. I wonder what it would have been like if I was able to take a month off to go live on a farm somewhere that I could help run for high school credit. Where there were other students from around the province, where we could be outside for most of the day doing hands-on learning instead of sitting in desks for five hours a day.

I’m curious to see what is out there in terms of schools run in alternative settings. I’d like to visit schools that are run by communities, that are based mostly in outdoor settings, that incorporate farming into their day plans. I have absolutely no idea what I will find. And I want to write while I flit around to check out this vast province. Just a couple of hours a day, processing and mapping out what has happened, what is happening, and maybe what I hope to happen. Drawing out the map of my life thus far in words. I am finding that it's all about the details, and in the writing of my experiences I am realizing that I have amassed some stories to tell! And so do you! That is what a life is, after all: one long, drawn-out story of choice and change. 

This weekend I am off to some social gatherings in the valley, and then to meet Barry to go for a horseback ride on my way home tomorrow. "My horse" as he calls Truax, is waiting for me. 

I’ve had a heavy dose of work and writing this week, and it feels good to have that insular, reflective time bookended with some social time.

Happy weekend everyone!