New Shoots

The Easter Bunny and I at this morning's pancake breakfast. 

I’m sitting outside in the cool spring sun. The snow has melted from the sunny spots in town, its recession bringing back the robins, the chickadees, the blue jays to bathe in my little backyard pond. I welcome the rejuvenating power of the sun, and as the grass begins to sprout new shoots I feel as though I too am entering a period of rapid growth and change after a winter of self-reflection. Even a plant I have had for twelve years is starting to bring up new shoots after being frozen while I was away over the Christmas break. I’m glad I didn’t give up on it as a lost cause. It feels like a time of rebirth for much in my life.

The teacher I am covering for is coming back to work in September, which means I will be going through some big changes in the next few months planning my next move. I was originally considering taking a little time off, spending some of my savings on living while pursuing some of my alternate passions: writing, painting, playing music. A good plan, yes, and it would be great to check out some more areas in B.C., but with plans to pursue a master’s in creative writing, it might be a good idea to keep working and bank some extra funds to help pay for more education. I’m currently working on a manuscript to submit to UBC’s creative writing program for their fall 2014 intake, which I hope to complete by the end of July. Then I’ll wait to see if I even get in.

Some abandoned buildings standing in dark contrast 

to the snow fields surrounding them.

Prairie field from the highway. 

It’s good to start making some goals and plans for the near future, even if my living arrangements are quite open-ended. I’ll see what jobs are available in this district, but I am also open to moving, with a small list of pre-requisites for the next town to try out: must have access to skiing or surfing, must be a town, not a city, must have easily-accessible wilderness. This sums up almost every B.C. town, but I also feel like now is the time to be exploring my options and trying out different places.

I’ve stayed in the valley this weekend, and it has been wonderful. My good outdoor playmate is back for a couple of weeks from his stint away working for the winter, so we were up on Friday walking with our skis into the mountains. My back is still tender and sore, but moving feels good so that’s what I am doing. I’m tired of sitting around being in pain; might as well move.

Farm boy and his dog. We tried to walk to the other farm yard, but the cold of the evening sent us back before reaching it. The land here plays tricks on a person. Things look a lot closer than they actually are.

Farm on the outskirts of a town.

Leaving Regina and heading out to the family farm. What "blowing snow"/whiteout looks like. And this is actually good visibility compared to what it can be.

Things with Cameron didn’t really work out as either of us had hoped, although we are open to supporting each other as friends in the future. Long distance dating is just not my thing, especially when I am trying to figure out where I want to be this fall.

Even still it was wonderful to travel to Saskatchewan, to meet his family, to garner a deep appreciation for how wonderful it is to live in B.C., where spring has unfurled its wings completely even though the prairie landscape is still wracked with blowing snow and seems in the deep freeze of winter.

We stayed at a little cabin and cross-country skied in the lodgepole pine forests of Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park watching the deer swish their white tails at us as they fled our company, we played badminton and swam at the rec centre in Regina, we saw The Hobbit in 3D at the IMAX, went out for a wonderful fancy dinner, went to the art gallery, went to a reading put on by writers nominated for the Regina Book Awards. I experienced what “blowing snow” means in the weather forecast, a new one for this B.C. girl; highways closed with twenty foot drifts across them, semis and cars in the ditches. I felt what a winter walk was like, breaking through the hard crust of the frozen landscape as a coyote yipped at us and called for its friends. It made me consider a different type of isolation: living miles away from town in a house with just your own family and the fields of grasslands and wheat spreading out in a blanket under the sky. It seems like a much harder lifestyle to me than what I am currently living here, but everything is seen through the lens of our own individual experience.

The roads blew me away. So different from the sights I am used to living here with the mountains and forests.

Last night I went out to a local jam session, wandering there with my guitar in hand, although I was too shy to play until the night wound down and only a few stragglers were left to bear witness. A guy who lives next door has a real knack for strumming out popular songs; he’s here for another week so we plan on rocking out a little together before he heads back down to his working life in the city. I am learning a lot about music these days, building up my confidence slowly, learning the lyrics and strumming patterns to some popular songs.

Snow deposits itself almost like sand across the landscape.

This morning there was the famous Easter Breakfast at the Community Club. Tons of kids were in town, and it was the largest turnout at a community event I have seen here. There was an egg toss, egg rolling, egg hunt, and of course lots of chatter. It has been great to talk about my upcoming move with the locals here, many of who are into the same extreme sports as I am, and have often lived other places in the province that I have yet to visit. I’m feeling no shortage of options, which is exciting, but I am also trying to ground myself in the experience of the now. You just never know what opportunities will come up in this life.

I have been asked to travel down the Fraser River again this year as a facilitator in training. It means I go for free, and that next year I might be able to have a paid role in the trip! That’s an exciting opportunity for me, as I am keen to get more involved in facilitating outdoor education experiences, and getting some experience teaching young adults with a passion for nature, just the types of folks who apply for a trip like the SLLP.

Well, here’s to spring and to feeling positive and strong in welcoming all the opportunity that comes my way. Life is sure beautiful in all its complexity, and the dips and dives make the view from the heights all the more grand. 

Mud Season

I write this as rain taps the skylights in my parent's house in North Vancouver, a place I have called home in some sense since I was four years old. It's grounding to have this place to come back to, however temporarily, for a dose of the familiar. Amazing to pull into a paved driveway after leaving the thick stew of the mud-rutted drive in front of my house: mud season has officially begun. The snow still stubbornly holds like an icy shield over the yard and in the thick of the trees, but the recent stretch of warmer temperature is working to find the edge of grass.

Tonight the house is vacant: parents and one sister away, the other sister out for the night, and I realize that it has been a very long time since I have spent time in the open spaces of this home on my own. It's quiet but for the rain. The rain is a frequent sound here, but the quiet feels new in a way, like something forgotten and then found almost by accident. I remember how much I used to love the quiet time here, just me and the rain. Often growing up and still even now a television is on somewhere, one of my sisters, or even playing to an empty room, the low-frequency voice of some reality TV dialogue stretching into the corners of every room. Most of my adult life has been spent living TV-less, and there is not an ounce of me that feels regret or like I have missed out on anything of significance. If anything I have read more, thought more, written more, painted more, talked more to people who I care about and who care about me.

It has been a very positive week for me personally, professionally, in my thinking patterns, and I think that perhaps I always experience some sort of a lull in positive temperament as the last threads of winter lift their fingers from the land. According to my mother I was always "more difficult to manage" during the month of February, and to be honest I was quite difficult to manage all year long while I was growing up, so perhaps "impossible" to manage is more of an appropriate term for my mood at the end of winter. I feel that in some ways I was also completely overwhelmed by the stresses of life as a young person, of the over-stimulation of growing up in a city, as this place became busier over the years we lived here.

What started out as a vacant forested lot beside my childhood home was completely bulldozed and then built up into gigantic homes and manicured landscapes when I was becoming an adolescent, just when an escape into the woods would have possibly calmed my spirited temper and mind.

But at least I am coming back to this now, to my need to escape to the wilds of somewhere in order to feel a sense of order and sanity in my life.

It was a rough drive down after school today, as the highway between Gold Bridge and Lillooet is in a serious state of disrepair, minefields of cavernous pot holes throwing punches at my poor vehicle, splashing muddy water onto my windshield. No way to avoid them without driving off the road. Just take it slow and easy and grit your teeth at times. Remind yourself it's just a vehicle after all.

I am here now for the night, en route to Saskatchewan, and it is spring break for the next ten days. Cameron and I had such a good time together in my locale, and now I am headed over to check out the land he grew up on, to walk in the snow, to watch the sky turn pink and pale with prairie sunset. Certainly not the tropical surf vacation that has been my usual fare over spring break, but it will definitely be different, somewhere completely new to tour with a local, and this is always exciting to me.

Calm after the Storm

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to send me an email, to phone or to hold me in your thoughts since reading about Sanford. It has been quite the week. Each day I am feeling a little better, and it is so very helpful to have such support from family and friends. Thank you!

Sanford’s owner stopped by Monday evening to tell me how sorry he was that I had to find him like that. We reminisced, and he told me of the burial site chosen for Sanford—way up high on a ridge overlooking the river where Sanford and I spent many afternoons walking. I’m looking forward to the long walk alone to pay him a visit there.

Today I finally started to feel back to my usual self again after a long February low. I'm sure that part of this is due to having plans to head into Lillooet tomorrow night, then for a ski tour off the Duffy Lake Road on Friday with a friend or two before heading down the sea-to-sky corridor and into Vancouver for the weekend. I’ve got lots of friends lined up to visit with, and some errands scheduled, of course. Looking forward to being just another anonymous face in the hustle of the city, if only for a couple of days. I have certainly never craved it like I do now, but I'm still sure that a couple of days will be enough for me.

This evening I spent a few hours in my art studio finishing a painting I’ve been working on for a while, and coming close to completing a second one that has been in the works. I’ll take some pictures during daylight hours when the glare from the overhead lighting is not so apparent on the fresh paint. It was wonderful to get into the creative zone again. I’ve also been writing these past couple of nights, just journaling in the evenings before bed, recording the ebb and flow of my thoughts.

Life can seem such a runaway train at times, but then there are also those moments of calm, as if I am staring into a mountain lake on a windless day, watching the surrounding trees in an almost perfect reflection. 

Sanford

WARNING: Content discusses the death of an animal, and may be sensitive to some readers.

Sanford is gone.

Cameron and I went to take him for a Saturday afternoon walk, and as I rounded the corner of the house to collect him my feet froze. His chain was caught on the post of the chain link fence, wrapped around and around and around. His motionless paws were lifted off of the packed snowy ground, rain-diluted blood staining the white of his fur. He was dead, and I knew right away, as soon as I saw him. His lifeless body was frozen there, and I stood frozen, mouth agape for a moment before I looked back in pleading horror at Cameron.

Cameron knew immediately that he was gone because my feet stood solidly in place; I did not run to him, as I would if he was still struggling. Cam’s expression began to mirror mine and he walked slowly past me and up to Sanford’s body to make sure he was in fact gone before we knocked on the front door. The tears came quickly, and my breathing was strong and fast, little gulps of air in between the whimpering sobs. My good friend, so many times my only companion in the wilds of the woods here, so many times a welcome respite after work, who kept my lonely heart full of unconditional love. I missed him already.

We knocked. The loud music turned off, and I let the poor guy doing the kitchen renovation know that Sanford was dead. This man, Reed, came immediately, looking as shocked and full of remorse as Cameron and I, and lifted the collar from its stranglehold. I stood close enough to smell his wet fur. He lowered Sanford’s immense body to the ground, and said that he should move him someplace safe so he wouldn't get eaten. The things we worry about living here.

“My God. I just heard him barking this morning. My own dog is in the truck. They weren’t playing because…” his voice trailed off before he went back to the task at hand: moving the body to a safer place.

There was a piece of clear heavy plastic that he grabbed, and he and Cameron dragged Sanford’s body, still warm, across the yard and into the shop. He must have been gone only hours, his barking too routine an occurrence for anyone to take notice, the chain too strong. His owner would be calling later that day, away for the weekend while the kitchen was being re-done, and Reed would tell him of the news.

The rain had finally let up, and pockets of open sky were making their way along the ridge at the edge of the river valley as Cameron and I walked up the hill from Sanford’s house after standing with Reed for a few minutes, all in shock. My steps hit the ground in calculated effort, their spacing frail and meek. I had been feeling pretty grey over the last week, a feeling that has been building for the last month or so. Cabin fever I believe they term it, although it affects each of us out here differently. A string of illnesses, back problems, the challenge of teaching such a small group of children in professional and personal isolation, the rain, the inside of the house. Too much self-reflective time, too much quiet perhaps. It all added up to a weight I felt too weak to carry on my shoulders any longer, and finally on Saturday afternoon, in time with the breaking clouds, I had decided to dust myself off again, to take Sanford out for a soul-filling walk in the woods.

We waded up the hill, slow steps, my head shaking back and forth in disbelief under my hood, tears stopping and then starting again, Cameron just behind me telling me how sorry he was, his own face frozen in colourless shock. A car coming towards us, stopping when they saw my face. A couple who live up the hill. I tell them of the news. A big hug, more tears, and then more weaving slowly up the hill. He was gone.

We spent a lot of the evening talking about it, unpacking it, the scene, our reactions, how we felt, what we thought at each moment. I cried a lot, wasn't hungry, kept seeing the scene in my mind. Talking about it is such important work when a trauma occurs. It really helped me, and will continue to be necessary as I go on with the week, with the grieving. 

I drove Cam to Lillooet today, stocked up on groceries, drove back in thinking silence, about Sanford, about this life here, about the weeks ahead, about where the students and I are going. I do feel strong again now, strong in a different way than I did when I first left the house to take Sanford for a walk. Things have quickly worked themselves into a sharper perspective. Or something like that.

A couple of calls from people around town today. There will be lots of support, I know, and I am so thankful that Reed and Cameron were there to help right away, when the pain was most acute, the sore of my heart open and bleeding. I would not have known what to do on my own, would have had to go seek help elsewhere if no one was home, would have run up the hill, or perhaps down the road, knocked on someone's door. There would have been help nearby of course, help that I know by name, but I was glad not to have had to seek it out in a blur.

It is a real tragedy, the loss of such a beautiful creature. I feel thankful that I had the time with him that I did, that he was here to explore the mountains around town with me when I was fresh to the area, that I spent some time last weekend giving him a good, long brush, that our last walk together was to the first place we ever walked, and that we walked right to the end where he could have a long solid drink of water, recently thawed.

I’m going to miss him dearly, but I feel picked up. Maybe not exactly dusted off, but standing straight, ready to face the week, ready to grieve when I need to, ready to talk it over with people who have questions, ready to take a walk with his owner this week, perhaps, to reminisce and remember.

I know I will be okay in the end. That everything will be okay. It always is in some sense. Always gets better when you start to watch your small steps. One in front of the other.

And this weekend I am getting out of here, going to Whistler at least, maybe even to Vancouver; somewhere to regroup. I need a break from this place, from the trappings of my living room, however beautiful and welcoming at most times, and from the tampering of a mind wound up with too much inside and too much familiarity.

Thankfully I have the freedom to choose to get away, and to actually get in the car and go. This is not the case for everyone here. And I have lots of people in my life who care, who have been calling and checking in. For all of this I am thankful, and right now this is enough to keep me strong.

I'm going to miss you, dear friend. May you always find yourself on happy trails until the day when we will walk together again.

Revival

After a twelve hour, much-needed sleep and a breakfast of French Toast made with Cameron's homemade bread I feel mentally refreshed and almost over this cold. My sinuses are still plugged up and I have a lingering cough that I have stopped noticing, but the chills, sneezing and sore throat are gone.

It's raining here. Pouring in a Vancouver-style torrent, although the white-lit sky is bright filtering through a thin haze of cloud. Rains never last long here, drifting by in an afternoon, in a morning before the clouds dissipate, pockets of blue sky return and the shadows.

My goals for the day are all fun: read, learn to make bread from Cameron, play guitar, post a note up here and start a couple of blog posts for the Rivershed Society Blog I am helping to start up, do some writing, or rather look through some of my old unfinished pieces and start to type something out. A start at a little portfolio of short stories, poetry. Nothing too overwhelming. I don't have the mental energy to pour more responsibilities on myself in addition to running a little school. The words are all there waiting for me, I just need to show up to work on them, and I know that at some point I will make the time and space I need for the editing and revising of what has been started.

It is warm outside for this time of year. The beginning of March. Just above zero. Snow still on the ground but slowly being rinsed away, washed into a shield of hard white atop the earth. And I wonder if winter will revisit us here, or if this is the start to a long, drawn-out spring. And I wonder about next year, where I will be living, where I will be working. I try not to get too wrapped up in the thoughts of the future, because who of us really knows how it will all work out. It is at times exciting to consider the possibilities, though, and at other times it is daunting. I try to be thankful for the ability to choose at all.

Or perhaps I will be here still next year, sitting on this same couch, with the same view of misty mountains from my living room window. Everything the same, yet different.