Photos from Past Lives

Message From the Couch

The telephone rings and I answer groggily from under a blanket on the couch. It’s my next door neighbour calling to see how I am feeling, if I have anything to eat for supper. You gotta love small towns! 

I’ve been couch and bed-ridden for two days, too lethargic to move, to think, to do anything other than stare blankly and sip fluids. For me the hardest part of living on my own is being sick, although I have been quite content to stare silently at the birds picking at choke cherries in my backyard trees, to watch the ice on the pond recede in the afternoon sunlight. Basically to sit and space out, getting up periodically to refill my juice, make some toast, put another log on the fire.

On Saturday I came home from a visit to Ashcroft and Lillooet for a district Boy Smarts conference and painted prolifically, finishing four paintings in the afternoon and into the evening. I found myself wanting to start another project with all of these half-finished canvases loitering in my workspace, so I had to get them cleared out before I allowed myself to make more mess in the artistic sprawl of my studio room. How lucky am I? Sometimes I just can’t believe that I have a studio room! Another beautiful part of living the rural lifestyle. When I’m feeling up to it I will post some photos. All but one are slated to go to different friends, although I would be happy to just hang them up on my own walls, which is quite a satisfying feeling. It’s not always that we artist types make things we actually like. But sometimes it happens, and when it does I always feel thankful to the muse for showing up ready to make something beautiful.

This writing thing is still going strong, although thankfully I was over the daily word count before the flu hit me. I have 8,000 words left to make it to 50,000 by this Friday. Easily possible, and I am going to keep going after the 30^th because the story is flowing more smoothly and easily now that I have written through the cobwebs in my mind. It only took 30,000 words to get there, but who is counting? This project could take me years to finish, but I'm okay with just letting it come as it does.

I’ve also been going through some photographs that have been collecting proverbial dust on my hard drive and plan on getting some printed out to put up around the house. I have all this wall space, and have been meaning to do this for years now, so maybe tapping into the energy of this creative tsunami will help with my follow-through. The thing is that I get overwhelmed with choice while using those computer stations at London Drugs. Do you want glossy or matte, boarder or boarderless, what size, colour or black and white, how would you like to adjust your colour? I usually come with a memory stick full of disorganized photos, hoping to pick and choose. All the other city errands of the day press themselves upon me as I sit there in front of the screen, overly sensitive to the time ticking by, so I go through a few and then abort, freeing up time to take care of more immediate needs, like getting groceries and renewing my car insurance.

I’ll let you know how it all goes.

Went for a wonderful cross-country ski with a friend just outside of Bralorne on Sunday, hours before sickness came knocking. The sun was shining from a perfect cloud-free sky and the snow was cold and light, throwing sparkles into the air behind us. Amazing. Looking forward to some more days on the trails soon. I’m supposed to be headed down to Vancouver this weekend for my best friend’s 30th birthday party, weather and health permitting. And to print photos. And get groceries.

Well, I should get back to staring blankly in contemplation. In comparison to being sick last year, this time it is much smoother. Perhaps it’s because I have friends here now, so I am no longer starving for social interaction. Perhaps I’m just more accepting of my whole situation here. Maybe I have developed a comfort with this whole living alone, sitting in solitude thing. Perhaps it is all of this, and more.

Portal

It's another foggy winter day here. The thin layer of snow is melting from the roof, and two crows pick at the last apple on a leafless tree in the yard.

Sanford and I have been going out for long walks in the dark, wandering just out of town where the night caves in on itself into a bottomless sea of black. I bring a flashlight, of course, but often only use it when I hear the infrequent sound of an approaching car. Instead I like to feel my way, to attune myself to navigating through the black silence without the aide of my vision. When we walk at night in the dark I am more aware of the sounds, of the way the wind brushes itself across my cheeks like the feathering of a paintbrush. The way it splashes through the trees in hushing gusts. My boots crunching along the gravel of the dirt road, and then sinking into the soft shoulder as easily as a fork presses into raw cookie dough.

Yesterday Sanford and I went on a long wander through the woods, veering off the well-worn path and onto an old road that I spotted from the trail. I'm getting skilled at noticing the signs of the old roads--the steady sloping rise of the ramps, now covered with slender newborn trees, the cut aways from the banks of dirt.

We followed it for a long time, getting tangled in some dead fall before finding clearer ground under the large fir trees studding the landscape. I found a large glass bottle, some metal to bend into a sculpture, an old open lock, some bright blue twine. We saw a couple of deer, a couple of blue grouse. Got a little lost and turned around at one point, but we ventured into the woods because there was lots of light left in the day and I eventually brought us out onto the highway at exactly the spot I had predicted. It's nice to feel more confident with off-trail travel, but at the same time I am still cautious. It wouldn't take much to get lost around here, and no one would have any idea where I was. However, the problem with telling people where I am going is that I don't know myself when I first start out. We just go, and whatever catches my interest guides us.

At least I have Sanford, and snacks, a light, a knife, and sometimes mace, usually water. Would not be able to travel as I do without him to rely on as my steady sidekick.

I've been doing a lot of 3D art lately, mostly with found objects from my walks. The more I make, the more I find, and my imaginative muse is constantly rumbling with new ideas for how to combine the materials I come across. It's a nice compliment to all the writing--something hands-on and visual to give my mind a break from the land of language. On the topic of language I have also been using old books that my mother was going to give away. I've been tearing them up, creating poems, splaying the words out on canvases, sticking them to pieces of broken glass, dying them to look old by painting over the page with a cup of instant coffee my family left in my cupboard after their Thanksgiving visit.

 Here's a little peak at the latest. It's made from a piece of driftwood with the inside discs from old hard drives tied on with fishing line. It's about five feet long. Hangs above the living room couch. The discs chime when I walk by or when the door is open and it's breezy inside. They also reflect, showing the view from all the windows during the day and casting some interesting shadows at night.

The writing has gone slowly this past few days. This is the toughest part so far. Yesterday the words were rich, but the count was low, and I have to be okay with that sometimes. Sometimes it really is about quality instead of quantity, but making those choices comes more in the second draft than in this rambling, meandering first. I'm still figuring out exactly what this story is about. Still letting it come as it wishes, sometimes about me, sometimes about other things, a huge jumble of words that will hopefully sort itself out and weave itself together if I just stand out of the way and let it do so. More for the second draft. For next month. I have a feeling this will be a long process. Have been drawn to seasons, and right now it is fall going on winter. I suppose I'll have to sit down and bang out some more as the seasons progress on their cycle.

Have been writing about the mine up here, about the old portals that still exist all over the mountains. Went to visit a couple of them with Sanford this evening on one of our favourite quick walks. I'd like to go underground in the mine up in Bralorne, and from what I hear it's possible to go down on a tour after you sign all the necessary waivers. It was interesting to talk to some friends this weekend who work underground, blasting away rock tunnels and then filling up rail cars with the resulting raw ore. The ore is then ground down into fine rock and then dust at the mill, and then gold is melted into a bead from the dust.

Working underground sounds like quite an intense experience, and then to top it all off the regular shift rotation is to work for 28 days on, split into two weeks of ten-hour day shifts followed by two weeks of night shifts before having two weeks off. Insanity. Not for the faint of mind. Like going underground. But I must try. Just to see what it is like. The muse and my own curious inclination demands it.

Things are going wonderfully at the school, although there is always more to do and I always feel like I am leaving things unfinished. I think it's just the way the job is: a constant work in progress. My desk is perpetually piled high with resources, although it is a chaos that is organized in my own way, and I can generally find what I need.

We hosted another tea party, red this time for Remembrance, and we showed our Monster Mash movie to the guests. As soon as I have permission from parents I will upload our creation to Youtube for your viewing pleasure. Students also took guests on a tour of our latest refrigerator box creation: a full-sized robot complete with fuse box, cardboard keys with slot, on/off button with instructions, wheels under the body to allow it to move around the room. It's absolutely amazing to witness the ingenuity of young minds still unhampered by the filters we seem to impose upon ourselves in our later years. My art this week has got me thinking about doing some found art with the students. I think we will start to collect things that they find outside to work with in the classroom. To build up a little stockpile of found art objects.

We have started a new unit on local history of the area, which will of course be interspersed with the typical Christmas theme. Our next project is to design and build a model of Santa's village, which I will also tie into lessons about the "north" and to geography when we talk about true north versus magnetic north. We are also going to be writing a Christmas play to record and edit on our ipad, which may alleviate some of the stage fright that accompanies being one of four kids performing in front of the entire community at our Christmas concert.

Well, it's chocolate o'clock and I am overdue for the day's writing session. Send me your positive thoughts with the writing. At times it feels like I am writing a lot but really saying nothing; all part of the process though. Doubts and all.

Weathered

This is how the dry summer and deep-freeze of winter ages things. It bleaches exposed wood and leaves the shock-red of paint still showing even after decades left to the whim of wind and sun. It leaves a history for me to find on my walks with Sanford. Not so in rainy Vancouver, where the rain demolishes abandoned wooden buildings and the plants eat so quickly over their shallow remains.

There's a light dusting of snow on the ground that came overnight. The first of the year in town. Good for tracking animals. Up at dark I light the fire, put the water on for tea. Drive up to Bralorne after forcing down some it's-too-early-to-be-eating oatmeal and get in the truck with my friend and the guns. His quad is strapped to the pick-up bed in case we have to pull a dead animal out of the bush.

We drive down an old logging road that is an artery for some of the backcountry I have climbed on skis. The same road where I saw my first moose last winter. I wonder if it is still alive. He tells me stories of growing up hunting with his father, with his brother in-law on horseback, of the moose and deer. The cab of the truck smells like burning fuel.

I spill my honey-laden tea on my lap, on my fingers, then wonder about what happens with the blood. I know that it will be sticky if it gets on my hands. In the end there are no shots, there's no blood, no game. We did follow a couple of wolf tracks, and caught up with them around a bend in the road. He stops the truck, looks at them in the sight of his .33. Two huge, black Sanford-sized wolves that stick out against the snow like peppercorns would on top of a pile of salt. We watch them for just a moment before they notice us and dart off the road into the thick bush.

Later we check the swampy places for moose tracks. Nothing. No deer. No grouse. No moose. Just two wolves, which is plenty to see in my opinion. You could almost see their scary wolf faces from where we were. Could almost hear one growl to the other to "look there's someone there!" in a snaky wolf voice with death on his tongue. They were HUGE and absolutely beautiful.

We will head out again on Friday, and maybe then I will see where the line of my comfort is drawn. But maybe not; I am also okay with just watching for wolves.

Breaking the Ice

I've been writing every second day over this weekend, as it felt like I was just beginning to break through the ice and getting to the meat of the story at the end of my shorter writing sessions. And I'm certainly not one to push myself past the words that are absolutely necessary after I have already put in a long day of work at the school. Not at this stage anyway. Still getting to know the storyline, the characters, still meandering and rambling, and I am okay with that. Rambling means more words.

Tonight I hit 20,000 words in the novel draft. So far the words still come with ease, like cutting through butter that has been sitting out on the counter all day, but I also let them come out sloppy and disorganized and misspelled. Sitting down and getting started is the more difficult part, although I have a little evening routine--stoke up the fire, kettle on for tea, some chocolate. My life here is full, and so I have much to draw upon for inspiration, and the more I write about this life the more I realise how intriguing it really is to be living here like this, as a member of this small community. I consider how much we really know about each other, or think we know. And in that I am starting to find a voice, full and strong, that seems to scribe out the nuances in the lives of others. I'm not sure if I am writing for an audience someday or if I'm doing this just for myself; what I do know is that I am having a wonderful time humming along in the writing of it.

It is writing about me, yes, but also not, as there is much imaginative elaboration in the words. In the end only I will know which parts are true and which parts are embellished and added to, or are changed just enough to push them off the fence and into the lair of fiction.

This weekend I have spent a lot of time walking with Sanford, splitting wood, playing the guitar and painting. It is finally winter outside, at -10 in the morning and warming to just below freezing in the afternoons. Sunny, and the air is pregnant with the crisp smell of snow.

Today there was a Remembrance Day ceremony at the local Gold Bridge Cemetery. A good dozen people turned out. Poems were read, names from the plaque to honour the fallen from this area were read. Some unfamiliar faces. It's always exciting to be meeting new people even after living here for more than a year.

I'm going hunting with a friend tomorrow. I have no idea how it will all sit with me, this killing and gutting of an animal still steaming with the breath of life. I feel that since I do eat meat I would rather be involved in the preparation of my own food, therefore pinning the consumption of it to a life that I have taken, rather than putting the responsibility for the death of my food out of my hands. Rather than purchasing a sterilized version of meat on a styrofoam tray wrapped in plastic, I want to remember that what I am eating was once a living, breathing animal rather than remaining blissfully unattached to this reality. And the animals slaughtered for purchase in stores live lives much more horrendous than one lived by a wild animal out grazing tonight on woodland plants. Perhaps this line of reasoning seems strange to some of you, but I want to be aware of where my food comes from, and want to learn how to get it myself, and if I want to eat meat I need to be okay with taking a life. Not that I am doing any shooting tomorrow. I'm just going along to observe and help in the gutting, if I am even able to. I suppose I will learn where my comfort levels are, and this is the whole point. I'm sure the experience will make me think twice about wasting any of the meat on my plate.

Word Count

Eleven-thousand three-hundred seventeen, so far with relative ease. Now finished day six of the thirty day novel-writing marathon as part of NaNoWriMo. Apparently week two is the tough one. I'll let you know.

Still participating in activities in other areas of my life in addition to the daily word count. Enjoying splitting wood, keeping the wood stove burning, heading out on some drizzly walks with Sanford, researching grad schools, keeping up with fruitful email banter with good colleagues and friends. 

In school tomorrow we are making our own video that goes with the famous "Monster Mash" song. We storyboarded out all of the scenes, looking line by line at the lyrics of the song to decide what kinds of images we should be filming. We have assigned roles of costume/makeup, director (me for this first movie), actors, cinematographer, editors, choreographer. I even made a clap board with erasable scene and take areas, just to get the full effect. 

Our refrigerator box--which was first a spaceship, then a coffin in our Haunted Corner--is now transforming into a robot. 

Working on creative projects is a great way to practice multiple skills and to get everyone in the room involved in the same learning activity with each student participating at their own level. It's also nice because students can try on different roles in a project, starting with something they feel comfortable with and branching out as the project continues, or on the next similar project. And the talk amongst the students is AMAZING! Sometimes I just sit back with a pencil in hand to record all the intelligent ways they are solving real-life problems that arise as they work. I am proud that they now ask each other for help rather than running immediately to the adult in the room (me) to mediate the situation. When this happened at the start of the year I tried to respond with, "well, I'm not sure how we could fix that. Let's bring it up with the group to see if we can solve it together." I tried to then model how to ask for everyone's ideas and talked my thinking out loud as I considered all the options that were suggested. Ultimately the solutions, whenever possible, came from the students, rather than from me, and I hope this showed them that they really do have the ability to solve complex issues if they work cooperatively as a group. They already hold the knowledge within themselves if they remember to take the time to stop to ask for ideas and to have a discussion about it. It's definitely an ongoing process, but so far this group is great at relying on each other and valuing the input of each member of the group.

In writer's workshop we are working on creating powerful openings. The Ks are working on adding details to their stories, and on listening for the sounds of things in their pictures and matching those with letters they know and copying words from around the room. Very fun with children, who still have much of their imaginative spark in tact. They are also incredibly good at "thinking outside of the box", for lack of a more original phrase. Or, as in our case, they are good at thinking both inside the boxes, and out of them. (Hahaha... aren't I funny? Get it?)

Sweet dreams all. Thanks for taking the time in your busy day to be interested in what I am up to. I do appreciate it :)

Play Again - Documentary

You've gotta check this out. It's a two minute trailer for a documentary entitled Play Again, which, from what I gather, looks at what childhood behind the screen has become: one devoid of regular daily interactions with nature, and follows a group of young participants as they get back to nature and discover things about themselves that they just wouldn't be able to indoors. Some of the quotes from the children participants are shocking, yet relate to what we hear all the time as educators: kids are spending the majority of their waking hours inside. Let's get them out!

I'm going to try to host a screening for my community here, and possibly one in Lillooet too. The pie chart was especially illuminating for me. Really puts the amount of time kids spend in the virtual world into perspective. Take the two minutes to watch and tell me what you think. Which parts of the trailer stand out for you?

Click here to be directed to the official Play Again website.

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo for short, is here: November! Obviously I am feeling like I need a bit of a push to get this novel finished, so I signed up to write a novel, 50,000 words, in the month of November. You are considered a "winner" if you make it to the word count, which frees up the creative mind to write complete garbage. You allow yourself to write a "shitty first draft" as Anne Lamott puts it succinctly in her book on writing, Bird by Bird. A highly recommended read for you writer types. If you have any books you'd like to suggest, please leave a comment.

Part of the tricky thing while writing is to get the editor side of your brain to shut off while the creative side is let lose on the page to scribble and meander and play. The editor is the part of your mind that worries about your writing being interesting, worries about spelling, and tells you that your ideas are completely boring and unoriginal and who would even want to read them anyway!? Who can write with such pressure?

So it's day four, and while I haven't finished my writing for the day, I have been getting at least 1,700 words in over the last three days. To get to the 50,000 I need to type at least 1,700 words each day, or double up if I miss a day. So far so good. Lots of ideas, lots to say, lots that is waiting to be found if I keep looking, like the layers of bark peeling back around the trunk of a trembling aspen. New layers are just waiting to be found, and if I run out of material I have the ten or so journals that I have been filling up with ideas for years at my disposal. Now is the time, and I am certainly seizing the days.

Outdoor Classrooms

Schools are already doing what has long been a dream of mine: holding class outside! Click here for a great article about an outdoor kindergarten class in Victoria. Since moving here I feel a lot less constrained to keeping students inside, which means I am able to teach in a way that is closer to my own beliefs about learning: that learning happens deepest when in direct connection with experience.

This philosophical belief is something I hope to pursue in my master's. I'm going to apply to a couple of programs in B.C. and then take it from there. The more I think about it, the more I think that now is the time! I'll keep you posted.