Layers

After a trip to the city it always takes a few days to recover—mentally from the massive dose of sensory stimuli, emotionally from acute exposure to the unbridled consumerism of fellow human beings, physically from the drive and from the socializing. It’s good to be back and in good health once again.

Bullet holes in an old metal pail I found at an abandoned mine site.

I returned home on Sunday to a shrunken snow pack exposing the holes of dirt on the road, to the bare tree branches hanging in a grey evening fog. I unloaded my grocery-laden car, put the woodstove alight and immediately went for a walk with Sanford, a long meandering trail pulling my footsteps easily into the thin inland woods.

The walk. Not a single car, not a single advertisement, not a single fluorescent light to send my mind abuzz with anything extra. Just me, a gigantic dog, and the slushy path before us. Home.

I take comfort in this, in the quiet of this place, in the solitude of it all. I have always enjoyed it here, but the longer I stay the easier it is becoming to be content with the silence, with cooking and eating meals on my own, with entertaining myself in my spare moments. On my own I have much to fill my time, which is a nice thing to come to know and appreciate about one's self.

Bark peeling from a tree in the fall.

I spend my mornings fighting to relight my fire while others spend time rushing to buy coffee, to beat traffic, to get to someplace far from where they live. My work is a one minute walk away and I have to actively pursue any outside distraction in my off-work hours, but that is changing as I make more and more friends up the hill in Bralorne. At times I am thankful for the hill, for the small distance that separates me from a constant social pull. Living here I have time to pursue art and writing and teaching in ways that I could never honour while my soul was caught up in the frenetic pace of city. Living in Vancouver there just wasn't time to fit it all in, nor space to spread various projects out across the floor. But it won’t always be this way, and I know this, so I welcome the time while it’s here. One day I’m sure I will share my life, my home, my bed, but until then I will write and read and paint and ski and bike my heart out with nothing to explain to anyone but my own conscience. That is truly living. For me, in this moment in my life, it doesn’t get much better. Of course it's not always this easy. Life is never great absolutely all of the time, no matter what one's geography is; however this living alone in isolation thing has helped me become much more content to let moods slide over me without judgement, because most of the time I am great, and that is enough. 

The handle of an old drawer left out to weather.

I’m off to spend some time reworking, rewording, editing, deleting. Delaminating these characters that have popped up during my month of writing. And I DID IT! Made it to 50,076 words at 5 pm on November 30^th. Still have no idea exactly where I am going or what the story is carrying within it, but I’m okay with wading through the mystery as it unravels itself before my eyes. Hoping to have a full first draft (which will still be shitty, of course, as they are) done by the end of January. May need to revise this deadline as it approaches, but I must start with some end in mind. Then I will let it rest for a couple of months, perhaps until the summer, and then we go for round two. We shall see. It's all one big unknowable adventure, just the way I like things.

Thanks for your support everyone, my mystery readers and otherwise.