reflection

spent the day

seeing trees 

shapeless

scatter

in the rings of raindrops

Gallery of Trees

Just a reminder to click on any image to enable viewing the gallery in large-scale format. Enjoy!

Information

This day we name Friday once again arrives, and I start the morning by filling the stove with kindling and balling up the city newspaper left by my family. I always scan the headlines before contorting the words into a combustible sphere, often surprised at what people will spend their time reading, what kinds of worries occupy their minds: fashion trends and movie listings, the impending doom expected to befall one precariously placed foreign government or another, the NHL lockout, celebrity this and that.

Don’t misunderstand my feelings of amusement towards the headlines—I love the news, and I think current events are very important—especially while living so far removed from “society” as some of us understand it—but I just can’t comprehend the need for the kind of volume published in a local city newspaper. Hundreds of stories each week, many which lack contents that engage the public in any real critical thinking. And who actually has time to read all the stories that are published, especially when you live in a city with all its distractions, errands and traffic?

I’m going to stop myself here before going on a longer rant. Internet news. It’s great! You can check out multiple news sources publishing on the same topic (a more rounded view of an issue instead of taking one paper’s view on things as the undisputed “truth”), and you can pick and choose what to read. Sure you are probably tailoring your reading to fit your own biases and opinions, but such is the way we often seek out information, assimilating the stories that confirm our prefabricated worldview and discarding those that oppose what we believe to be true. And then there is the issue of corporate and private ownership of media outlets, and tied to that the interest in particular stories being published (or not). It’s a complicated world out there.

The wood pile. Went out and got my last load of wood with Simon last night, and then another friend stopped by after his hike to bring me more. Perhaps I’ll have to live here another year just to burn it all; then again it could be a long winter, and I’ve been gifted an amazing outdoor fire pit for my backyard—an old metal washing machine basin, complete with the perforated holes in the sides and a spine where the agitator would have fit. Tons of metal made its way into the valley with the thousands of residents who once lived here, and it rarely makes its way back out again. I find it strewn beside the river during my walks, leeching rust into the waterways it rests beside, somehow beautiful and haunting in its stillness. I always wonder how the items got there, what story they would tell, and why someone decided to abandon them the particular place in which I find them.

The weather seems to be changing. Clouds hang on the mountains this morning, and wind sends the red and yellow leaves raining onto the concrete beyond my windows. I’m tentatively scheduled to go on a hike tomorrow, but will not be braving the roads if the rain starts. After this kind of a drought I imagine there will be some heavy slides and rock falls happening along the highway out of town. I’ll be happy to be stuck inside working on some writing about the Fraser River trip and planning our next unit at the school. Life has been full of activity for me with this spectacular weather, and I have to say that I’m looking forward to a forced slow-down during the off-season. Some time for inward reflection and writing instead of always looking out. I’ve got enough material to keep my busily working away for months at least, and I’m planning on taking some time to have writing as my “job” at some point in the next few years.

I find myself actually missing the rain. Missing the steady grey cloud that stops itself like a ceiling over Vancouver, cleansing the air and the sidewalks, bathing the cedar trees in their own sweet scent, feeding the moss that grows over everything, erasing the traces of our human imprint that withstands the deep-freeze and sunshine here. The dry weather in this climate preserves buildings and fallen trees for decades that would otherwise be swallowed up by forest down on the rainy coast. I suppose this has given me things to look upon for a glimpse into the past, a way to get to know this place, some landmarks to explore. And I know that the rain will visit me here too. It will come before the snow, and I will welcome it as a reminder of my own roots, of where I have come from.

Sunrise

Mount Sloan can be seen from all over this town, from the highway as you drive into town and up the hill to Bralorne. I look upon it from the front door of the school, watch it stand as a sentry over the valley as I walk home from work, see it peek from between the trees in the front yard of my house, from beyond the cliffs on the walks I take with Sanford. One morning last week I was lucky enough to look back as I left my house and started the one minute (literally) walk towards the school, and caught this glimpse of the golden sun held in the clouds like a halo of light above this mountain, the daily backdrop to my life here.

This weekend I took my family up to the old fire watch cabin on Green Mountain, which is the rounded hump to the far left of Sloan's peak. We looked out over the view of Bralorne, of Gold Bridge, of the cavity of mountains holding us high above the carpet of trees and clearcut patches below. I showed them the routes I've taken ski touring in the winter. I think they started to sense a little of what it is that makes me so happy here. How close nature is for me. Although they were sweating. I forget that not everyone routinely hikes or bikes up mountains on their days off. Oops.

Gazing upon the razor edge of the same mountain through a full rotation of the seasons is part of the magic that holds my heart cupped in its palms. I'm hoping to hike up to the top before the winter spreads her blanket over the valley, but time is quick and my days are full.

Changing Seasons

A knapweed plant begins its fall fade. The small purple flowers look beautiful, but these plants are actually an invasive species that thrives in disturbed areas like the gravel patches next to my home and beside the school. In the spring the students and I will be out there clearing these plants and putting some native species in their place.

Time

What a weekend, as they always are here. My family was up, everyone but my middle sister, and we spent our days walking, hiking, hanging out at Gun Lake and eating fabulous food under a sun-saturated sky.

As an assignment over the weekend I sent each student home with a disposable camera with the instructions to take pictures of the things they are thankful for. I explained that they wouldn't be able to see the pictures, and showed them how the cameras worked. "Why can't we see them?" one of my Kinder students asked, and I started to explain how photography worked before losing her to the click of her first picture: me.

I had my own disposable camera out and ready to use this weekend as well so that I have images to model some of the writing activities we will use the pictures for. I took pictures of Sanford on a walk with my Mom, of my family doing the dishes after I cooked dinner, of my parents dancing in my dance floor-sized kitchen, of the delicious turkey dinner at my own little dining room table. I realized many times this weekend that I have so much to be thankful for. My life here has blossomed into something very special. I have embraced it, this whole living-on-my-own-in-the-mountains thing, and in doing that I have been open to the many people and unique opportunities that have present themselves. I feel so thankful that I made it though a year up here on my own, and I look forward to the challenges that this winter will bring, however cold and long it may feel. I know that spring always comes, and I've learned to start taking things one day at a time by living here. I feel like the city presses weeks of plans upon my shoulders, but here there is space to breathe; I can just live at the pace of living. The only thing I really should do this week is collect another truckload of wood. And go to work each morning. And there is such freedom in the thought of just having to "do" these two activities. Everything else is open, and I am ready to say yes to whatever my wandering heart takes pause at.

Time. It has a different pace here. There is no traffic pressing me to leave early for work, stopping me from coming home after a long day. No rushing to get to the store or do errands. Time stretches its legs out, flaps like a flag in a light breeze, folding back and forth upon itself beneath a calm sky.

A friend who was over for dinner this weekend talked to my family about the history of this area, about how many thousands of people used to live here. What were their lives like, I wondered, and then I realized that I know many folks who were born here, and that I should spend more time talking with them while they are living here as my neighbours, as the pioneers of this place that I so recently began to call home. Questioning the past makes me think of my own childhood; after this weekend it has a much tighter grip on my memory than ever before.

On special occasions while we were growing up--unbeknown to me until this weekend--my parents would rent a video camera and would record us on VHS tapes. Twenty-eight hours of footage in total. My Dad recently realized that the quality of the tapes would deteriorate and so he had them put on DVD and brought them up here this weekend for our inaugural viewing pleasure.

They are HILARIOUS!!! My parents ask us to sing and dance and for me to show off my gymnastics moves. It's pretty crazy to see myself as a small child, my sisters and their simple yet deeply complex thoughts, my parents talking about how heavy the camera is and what's that blinking red light that seems to be on all the time, and can you sing us a song that you know, Jacquie, and I just belt one out that I happen to know off by heart. A song that I find now, at 29, still buried deep within the bowels of my neurons, not even dusty after a decade-and-a-half of non-use.

There is even footage of us horseback riding, dressed in party dresses imagining a tea party in the backyard, spiders included, me showing off the art in my favourite alphabet book, Northern Alphabet, which I had forgotten about but instantly the floodgates open and I remember. Mostly it is footage of my family and I just hanging out. And I am thankful that we had time to do this, to hang out and be kids, because there are many kids in this world who don't get that time, who don't have all of the things we had plus parents to record it all, how lucky we all were, although I'm sure we didn't know it then.

I realized in watching the few hours that we did how incredibly HYPERACTIVE I was, and how into artistic and dramatic play I was even then. I realize that I was always an artist, even as a child, but perhaps children are all artists until we systematically shut down their creative selves by demanding "right" answers and standardized performances from them; this is a topic for another post.

Thank goodness I found an outlet for my hyperactive self, a place to balance me out: any activity in the great outdoors, which at this stage in my life happens to be in my own backyard.

Before watching the videos I imagined scenes of my sisters and I fighting: over toys, over attention, over a misinterpreted glance. Instead the few hours of footage show that we were actually quite civilized to each other. I was even kind to and helpful with my two younger sisters! I guess it was early enough in our lives that we still got along, because from what I remember of our teenage years the waters in our household were definitely turbulent, and the roller coaster of hormonally-charged, independently-minded teenage girls was certainly full of crashes.

Now the three of us get along famously, but we would have rolled our eyes at you if you had prophesized this when we were younger.

Time. It has crept back into my life in the form of remembered memories. Were they there all along, waiting to be mined, still intact after all these years like the song that lay waiting to be sprung forth from the trap of childhood? Favourite toys, favourite dresses passed down from oldest child to youngest, of songs and rhymes I used to know by heart. In a way I feel I have stepped back, but at the same time I feel further along than ever on this journey we name a lifetime. Each step has made me the person that I am and each has strengthened the muscles in my legs so that I can carry on walking forward to a place that I can not see. All I can see is the path directly beneath my feet, but I can also look back to the places I have been, to where I have come from. For this all, I am thankful.

Fall Colours

This morning the bite of fall greets my bare feet as they make their way downstairs. I light my first morning fire of the season, happy to feel the heat leap to my face as the thin timbers become engulfed in an orange glow. 

Earlier this week I was content to be back splitting wood and organizing the pile that will keep me warm thorough the long winter months. There is a rhythm to splitting wood, a Zen quality where your mind grows blank as you swing the splitting maul, eventually hitting the right spot and opening the log as easily as unfolding a book on your lap.

Luckily I have a friend with a chainsaw and a faller’s license who is responsible for taking down the snags (trees that have died but are still standing) at the Kingdom Lakes Campsite nearby and doesn't mind helping me stock up on firewood. One more truckload and I should have wood to spare at the end of the season. Better to have too much, as collecting it when the ground is snow-laden would not be fun!

Last fall I remember walking with Sanford, both of us new to the trails that lead away from town into the hills. I remember thinking how beautiful the fall was here, how the golden leaves of the trembling aspen line the ground in colour, how the brush at our feet was painted the colour of a rich autumn sunset. I remember thinking that I would like to experience fall here again, and here I am.

 Logging off the Hurley. This was last fall, but there is lots of new activity there this year.

Water over what used to be a bridge.

I have been doing a lot of reflecting on my teaching practice and on the daily interactions between myself, the students, the experiences of us all in school, and this has left me with less time to keep up with the blogging. It’s a necessary part of my job, though, being able to think about what went well and what I would change, or what a student may need, what their behaviour may be telling me, where they are with a given task and what they need to push their learning deeper. It is absolutely amazing to be able to observe and think about the learning of so few students; an opportunity for deep reflection that few teachers have.

I have also been going out on my evening walks with Sanford and on long bike rides. Yesterday I phoned a few people to see if I could interest anyone in a mountain bike, with no success, so I just went out on my own again. When riding on my own I do not take any thrilling downhill routes, but stick to the logging roads with a sense of exploration. As I pedaled out of town I thought about how I feel completely comfortable doing things on my own, and this is why I have been able to thrive out here.  When there is no one else to join you then you just have to do what you want anyways, or else you will sit on a heap on the couch instead of being out in nature.

Sanford waits patiently for the photographer to finish :)

I have also been working on some paintings, creating a stain-glass window out of some beach glass I found in Oregon, writing stories here and there. I got a book from the library entitled How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy) which is a series of cartoons with captions written by Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, about how to get stuck in the pitfalls all artists (and many people for that matter) experience. A number of the cartoons resonated with me, so I copied a small collection to post around my little art studio as reminders. Right now I am looking at one that says “Demand 15 hours of free time to create, so you can ignore the 15 minutes you’ve got.” The second says “Slide into despair rather than take one small exploratory action.”

One small exploratory action at a time. That is how art is created. And using all the minutes you can steal from the day.

I’ve started playing the guitar again. Not sure if I already mentioned this. It was something I hoped to start upon moving up here, but then I became frustrated at my lack of progress and gave it up for a few months before going back to it this fall. Now I have learned a whole song, “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and can play two originals that I wrote last year. I think I have realized that sometimes I just need a break from something before going back with a fresh spirit, and the workshop with Diego taught me that all creative pursuits use the same skills of exploration and open-mindedness; a sense of play threads their way through them all. They all relate, freeing me up to continue to be interested in tons of different things without the pressure to stick to just one. I am a dabbler, and it is great to feel an ease and contentment in this.

Well, it’s Friday and I’m off for a morning mountain bike with my friend Ian. Part of my family is arriving for a visit this weekend: my parents and my youngest sister. They have both visited before, my parents helping me move from Lillooet, and Stephanie staying here for a couple of nights before I had  really gotten settled. It’ll be nice to have them here now that I have an established life. I’m sure they will understand why I am so content here once I whisk them away on adventure after mountain adventure all weekend long.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!