Flat Light

Snow Lady in Pond Inlet on the day the sun returned.

Yesterday I tried to write, I started writing. Then it occurred to me as I read through what I had written so far that I was deeply displeased with the results. It seemed self-absorbed, boring, dumb. So I stopped. What was spilling out seemed uninspired, flat. I still wanted to write something, but I was not 'feeling it' as they say.

This morning again I am bound and determined to write something, so here I am, starting fresh. However, I am still not in the zone yet. But the word 'flat' reminded me of an email I had sent when I was living and teaching in Pond Inlet in 2000/2001. I had this habit of sending out mass emails to a long list of friends that I loved and missed, little prose and poetry updates on life and it's various curiosities and miseries in the small high Arctic community. My missives were often short, but good I thought; simple, elegant, connected and connecting. It was a way of reaching out to people in my life, feeling connected from my extremely isolated little fly-in access only home. A somewhat self-conscious written form of extroversion within a deeply introverted existence. Here is what I wrote, the subject line of the email was "Flat Light":

"Boring" Teacher Fiooooona
 (as my students used to call me).

School was cancelled today at 10:30, and after an hour and a half of making origami frogs and racing them on the tiled floor at the bottom end of my classroom, the five kids that came to class this morning were whooping with joy to go home. Most of the town, including 8 out of 16 teachers are sick with flus of various sorts. Yeah, I was whooping too. A cloudy day when the sun has just returned is a little anticlimactic, but has it's own flavour. As I look out my bedroom window the world is still and perfectly white (bluish white), If there is a skidoo track cutting the snow, or a change in topography, or a horizon line breaking the world out there I can't see it. It is simply flat. i am afraid when I go outside I will trip and fall, for not having seen the bumps in the world.

This email was sent on February 7th, 2001, 5 days after the sun had returned. On the 73rd parallel in 2001, February 2nd marked the end of a 3 month absence of it. It was a powerful thing living in a world of starlight and twilight. A kind of cocooned suspended animation of a life. Nesting deeper into the covers, books, knitting, painting, glasses of wine and movies. Sometimes just sitting and staring into dimly lit space. Being stillness. In my class I had the kids working with crafts of various sorts, one of which was papier mache masks. I usually participated with my own interpretation of whatever I was asking them to make. The mask I made was a sun-face. When we worked with tissue paper making 'stained glass' I also made a sun and taped it to my living room window. That tissue paper sun travelled with me for years afterwards, taped up in the window of my car or whatever I was calling a home at the time. It held some important meaning, and symbolism to me, reminding me of that day when the sun returned.
The darker winter months had and sometimes have this sense of waiting for me.
Waiting for light to return, waiting to get out on the land again. To un-coccoon and stretch my legs and breathe more fully. Waiting for the sun, for shadows, for contrast.

In 2001, February 2nd was the day the sun returned. There were celebrations in the community, everyone was out, building igloos and carving snow-people, dressed up in seal and caribou, eating seal and caribou. And for a fleeting few minutes the sun rose low, a thin bright colourful line above the horizon.

On February 2nd 2013 my family and many friends and colleagues celebrated my dad's bright and brilliant life, the sun sneaking above the horizon line in memory after his slow decline into darkness.

On February 2nd, 2014 I am starting a ski trip to the snowy Kootenays. To stretch my legs and breathe more fully, to celebrate the comings and goings of light and dark. To see if I can see the thin bright line of the sun returning once more.

My Father's Daughter

January 25th, 2014

A year ago today my father passed away. At the time, in that moment, I was as usual for me, somewhere else, geographically speaking at least.

He had Alzheimer's, dementia. He was always the 'absent minded professor' type, but in the years that preceded his death he became more absent than minded and the only thing professorial about him lived in the memories and perceptions of his friends and colleagues who had shared workplaces and ideas.

My dad generally worked too much. In that he worked at the university, for a firm that carried his name and legacy and myriad other special guest appearances at educational intitutions, conferences and as a consultant on various international things. For as long as I can remember he also worked at home. Often buried deep in sheafs of paper, computer files and book revisions. When I left home my bedroom became his second office (the other up in my parents bedroom). It's only in retrospect that I notice this…he had two offices in the house. That's how much he worked. His work of course was his passion, he was respected, liked and renowned in the various fields he contributed to. I don't doubt that it probably never felt like 'work' to him, in the sense that it was what he was made for in many ways. At least like many men of his generation, I imagine it was what he felt most competent at. The intellectual and creative elements of his life seemed to have escaped the emotional hobbles of a difficult childhood and early adulthood.

Dad and Adrian at a street party, circa 197?

My memories of my dad when I was little though faint are certainly wonderful in many ways. Before I became an obnoxious teen I believe I was adored in the way little girls are by doting fathers. And along with the regular stuff that dads do including piggy back rides and trips to the zoo, he also shared skills and experiences with me traditionally reserved for sons. How to hammer a nail, use power tools (some of them anyway), chop wood, explore the woods and get dirty and lost with impunity, paddle a canoe, snowshoe. He fostered in me a love for wild places, a willingness to explore them and an ability to look closely, carefully, and see things that perhaps not everyone can. This is something that persists in my life today, on a professional and personal level. I am usually the first to see the whale spout in the distance, or the wolf prints tracking around the tents in the morning. While there was a distinct disconnect between us on an emotional level, perhaps as much by my hand as his as I entered my teenage years and into adulthood, my dad was always a sweet, loving and gentle man. For sure there were layers of hurt, anger and loss beneath it. They were deeply buried and rarely spoken of. Despite that I always had the sense that he had an innocent spirit. If we talked on the phone, or if I came home to visit, his delight in seeing me was always apparent. Admittedly I often felt unable to receive it fully, though it was always freely and consistently given. Though on my visits home he would quickly retreat into an office, there was never any doubt that he loved and was proud of me, and the circuitous path that I was walking in the world. The wilderness in my veins was also his.

In his last few years, he was distilled, at least that's how I saw it, to his most basic parts. Emotional, impressionistic, absent mindedly sweet and loving in his reception of visitors (for the most part - also at many times anxious, confused and frightened). He was reduced, or made more full perhaps of what lies beneath the intellect. As he was eulogized by one friend, my dad was 'a gentle man'. I am my fathers daughter in a number of ways, some very concrete and visceral. And there are ways that I now aspire to be more like him. Daily.

It is said that it is the child's job to exceed the potential of their parents. With that thought in mind I aspire to retain an open heart, a willingness to keep moving through and beyond the things that go sideways and try again, despite loss or damage done. To live life as if there really is no way to get it wrong, but with integrity, care and truth. Before I reach a time where my intellect and memory is lost I aspire to be reduced to my purest form. I will make mistakes, gladly. I hope to remain or become more innocent. To retain and foster my naivety and trust in the goodness of the world and of people. To believe that this earth is resilient enough to withstand us.

Solo Mission

Campsite at Prevost, serenaded by Selkies.

So, admittedly I am not so great at this 'staying put' gig. Especially when the going gets tough…I am often the tough getting gone. There have been a lot of things in the past 6 months that could have pushed me away from the physical place that I have planted myself in. I was asked repeatedly after my dog was shot by a neighbour in August whether I would move. I didn't but the place…my house, the property and neighbourhood, the drive to town and walk to the mailbox have been irrevocably tainted by the fact that I would pass the site of Piper's death. The place where we raced to gather up his small body, still warm, into my arms. More recently there are lingering memories of something wonderful, but quickly lost. I am disoriented in the aftermath of this magical, heartfelt, and breathtaking thing, wondering and confounded by what just happened. This is the thing about staying put…it invites me to feel the echoes of loss more often than if I were to leave.

Perhaps that is true.

Lunchspot.

This past weekend I went on a little solo trip. Most of my life I have paced the wide line between craving a home place and the need to move, adventure, wander. I revel in the fact that I am able to throw together my gear, food, and a plan in a few hours and take off (in January no less) by kayak. Despite the lack of snow this year, and in general in my area (I love snow and winter and it is one thing that makes me seriously question at times my current geographical choice), there are many pretty awesome things about living in a temperate coastal place. A launch into the Pacific within 5-45 minutes is one of them. While the Gulf Islands reminded me a little bit of car camping in a kayak with toilet paper stocked outhouses and picnic tables at every site, in January it is dead quiet. Even on a weekend as glorious as this last there was no one else out there. Except a few thousand seals.

On my little weekend trip I paddled pretty hard most days, at least once racing to get across a channel before a humungous BC ferry could run me over. I monitored channel 11 on the VHF for news of shipping traffic in the slightly obsessive and mildly terrified way of a lone paddler, and gleaned from my chart and observations which boats would cross my path and when in an area that was new to me. The days are short right now too, so making the miles to the next campsite before dark without rushing through my morning coffee was also a factor. It was fun in the way I sometimes like to have fun - just a bit freaked out and a little uncertain. Enough to keep me on my toes and in the present moment.

On the first day, right after I launched I realized that I had spent more time of late checking out avalanche forecasts and looking at mountain topography than nautical charts, and as a result my perspective was skewed. For a time after I launched I felt disoriented and a bit panicked. It mirrored the disorientation I have felt sometimes in the wake of all that has come to pass this year. Certainly over the past few weeks I have felt so confounded, confused, unsure. That I had lost my bearings in the wake of an intense certainty.

Leaving Canoe Cove, not many meters away from where the "Coastal Celebration" rumbled ominously in it's port, the geography of the place was so obscured by the sheer scale of the ferries and their mooring jetties that for a good 20 minutes I was unable to situate myself on the chart. But I moved, checked out different islands in an effort to figure out exactly where I was. I paddled slowly and in a non-linear way, and tried to keep myself calm and present in the face of the approaching sunset.  Ultimately, once out of the shadow of the behemoth ferries and human features on the landscape I found myself again on the point of a small island, the San Juans before me and Sidney Harbour at my back. It was a moment when the scale and mess of islands on the chart and in the world suddenly became clear, and I was able to set a bearing on my destination for the night.
,


Maybe that's how it is. Amidst all this stillness some movement is necessary, critical. There were times in the rhythm of paddling on flat water with a clear destination that I found myself falling into waves of sadness, frustration, and rumination over recent things. But I also found myself noticing where I was and falling steadily into the task at hand. The smell and feel of ocean air, birds and seals speaking in their different ways, and the simplicity of pushing glass through salt water.

Storm Season

This Tuesday morning I am up, some time to drink my coffee and indulge the unfocussed urge I have to write…something. I have looked over the list of 'starts' that I have for blog posts but come up empty of inspiration for content for any of them. Titles like "The Invitation', 'On Risk' and 'Homeplaces Part II' sit on my list of unpublished posts asking for content and spark, but I have nothing for them today.

It's not a bad day so far. My legs still a little sore from the skiing I did on the weekend in the first real snow the Island has seen this year. They remember the thick coastal powder of Sunday, like skiing through damp icing sugar, in the lactic acid traces that still remain. My left knee is reminding me of the tweak of another dense ski day a couple of years past. Not quite bending under me the way it used to. There is still a trace of the way the sun tried to push it's glow through the clouds on my nose and cheeks.

I noticed the other day how I have answered the question "how are you?" these days. Certainly in the past few months my answers have most often followed a general theme. It's been a "rough", "crazy", "hard", "sad", "challenging" year. It seems that it has been a year of incessant change, much of it involving some form of grief and loss, at times the kind that is wrenching, difficult or shocking. However I have also reflected that earlier this year, after the death of my father, a split with my long term partner and leaving my job I  had often commented that while it had been full and sad, lots of good had come of the losses. They were kind and right in a way, and though difficult had also brought gifts of connection, love, and clarity. Until August, I would have said in my answer that the sadness and grief had been tempered by a sense of growth and peace.

In the past 5 months there have been a few more challenges, and though also laced with an intense beauty, they have been disorienting, unexpected and gut wrenching. I have spent good portions of time at a loss, incapacitated with grief to some degree, most intensely around the shooting of my dog Piper, but also at other times more recently when things that seemed so clear and right have taken an unexpected turn into murky confusion. It has been a year of visceral extremes, and as I have slowly entered this new year I can sense the beginnings of something I cannot quite wrap up in words.


At times I have had the sense that I am being 'tested', although I tend to believe the universe has better things to worry about than playing invigilator to my personal development. But I have started to notice patterns, repeated invitations into…something. Exactly what that is is still in the process of becoming clear, but my inkling is that it is about things that are long standing and partially buried. Only now being exposed by the record winds and tides of the storm season that was 2013.