The Confluence of Sand and Water

I have long been a believer in the incredible ability dogs have to channel pure joy. Through their ways of moving, communing with people and other dogs and the landscape they are a force of bouncy, paw-flailing, tongue-lolling celebration. Today I got my dog back after she had been away for a few days staying with the people that own her mother. I took her to the beach. This is what that looked and sounded like:

I have been mired down of late. Arguably in a sea of sadness for many months now, and newly stressed by some imminent changes (mostly good) and a hard decision I am weighing. My brain has been on a bit of a negative track and I have let it go there, let it ride the rails into some dark little tunnels. But I was on this beautiful beach today with this crazy dog girl and her enthusiasm was so ebullient that perhaps for a moment I have been able to shift and let myself feel a little bit of her unbridled goofy happiness. She loves the confluence of sand and water as I do. Based on how she gets 'zoomy' and runs in crazy dog-circles when we get to the soft sand on the beach, I imagine that she loves the feel of the stuff on her paws. The way it flies up and hits her belly in little disintegrating clods as she runs. And it's clear that there is something wildly amusing to her about the way water tastes and feels when she snaps at it, stomps her paws in it and play bows to the ocean at large. Then runs wildly away from it and back again in haphazard zig zags, paws asunder. Salty or fresh, Jespah finds water thoroughly wonderful, especially when it is moving in some way, either as the current in a rain filled creek or the rhythm of waves as they hit and slide up a beach. I do too. I just am much more reserved about it. So much so these days that it leaves me wondering whether I have forgotten my love for it. The salty taste of joy temporarily lost.

What this little clip also shows me is the glee that J has as she comes towards me. I have no illusions about dogs, I see them as creatures of the moment and of convenience. I know there are some people that are simply more important, more 'loved' to a dog, the ones they know, who feed them, interact with them, smell familiar. My dog, as with many, thinks most people are kind of marvellous, though admittedly myself and a couple of others are of more prime importance, but not really for sentimental reasons. Just because we are the smells and voices and hands of her puppyhood. I can understand that am special to her, and her approach in this clip is part of a our coexistence...part of the way I have trained this dog who is of  a sometimes difficult to train breed, to love coming back to me. Clearly she is anticipating some sort of wonderfulness to come about when she gets to me. A game maybe, or perhaps it is just the love of speed and soft sand and the edge of the water coming together at my feet. We are a confluence. Of dog and human, joy and sadness and elation and confusion, paws flying, tongues lolling, eyes shining.

Aspiration

To have an open heart.

There have been many events in my life, as there are in everyone's, that have left scars. Some bigger than others, some more jagged and unhealed. Where do scars come from? If it is a wound free from the complications of infection, it could be a clean one, one that might one day be as faint as a far distant memory. So faint as to be erased with the healing magic of the new skin we grow every 7 years. A thin line of white on tanned skin. Others heal poorly, raised, red, jagged, visible. We bear them with pride, showing them off at every opportunity. Consciously or not. Dinner time conversation. Beginning of the relationship story time. This is who I am; a timeline in scars, bruises, wrongs inflicted. Learnings.

But what did we learn that we are here bearing scars, and telling their stories? That they are the flag bearer as we explain ourselves to new friends, new loves. It is a question I am wondering about today, this week, this lifetime.

A scar suggests an injury, a cut, open fracture, burn, gash as a result of some trauma, some painful event or deed. Often we relate the stories of our scars to those who inflicted them. Someone else. Lost lover, bad parent, faithless friend. At best some well meaning, or unintentional emotional blunder visited upon us by a hapless individual. These seem to be the type of scars we bear most overtly, assigning responsibility and injurious blame to the other. Even sometimes when we think we are not, we are attaching a name and a face to the different scars we bear.

But what if. What if there is something else to be made of these experiences, something better, more right to learn. Is it possible we have 'learned' something other than what is most true? Something other than what we could be learning?

I say this because I think I have been off. Somehow somewhere along the line I got my wires crossed and started generating scars.

We are made of light, of stars, of soul. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Our humanity tells us there is something wrong with us, faulted, messy, imperfect. At some point we began to believe that the challenges we have faced, the experiences we have had may have been a result of this wrongness. But what if we are mistaken? That the things that have caused our scars were actually meant to open a door, not inflict a wound. We just misinterpreted. Saw it through a lens that was not clear. These things are meant to open us, not knit the flesh of our hearts with a map of scar tissue. Not close us, make us weary or less trusting.

We are built to love. Made to be open hearted. The things that knock us over, the tsunamis of experience are simply here, or on their way, to wash us clean, remove detritus. We are being invited to see with fresh and wide open eyes. Invited into truth. Awaken.

There is no getting it wrong.

Snow Melt

I was recently invited on a backcountry ski tour (thanks Josh!), in the Kootenays. Our four days on the Bonnington Traverse came complete with temps in the low -20's, clear skies and broad mountain vistas, a few sweet well-earned turns, and some fun (and for a few steps slightly sketchy) high alpine ridge travel. Skiing is something I grew up doing, and I was introduced to ski touring in BC back in the late nineties and early 2000's.  I found it addictive and wanted to do more of it, but it was one of those things that time, work, geography, companionship and skill conspired to limit me in. In 2008 when I moved to BC more permanently I aspired to get into the winter backcountry again, get better and more competent at touring. It's now 2014 and here I am, finally getting down to it. I have no aspirations to work professionally at it, but aim to do more of it for fun, for bodily solace, for the hard work and the glorious (though not always graceful) powder turns it affords me.

I wrote in a previous post about 'the Farm', a place deeply connected to memories of my dad and one that taught me much of what I know about real life. By real life what I mean is living in places where it is impossible to take basic things for granted or get bored for lack of things to do. On the Bonnington  there are a number of small efficient huts scattered at 9-11 km intervals throughout the tour. They sleep 6 or so…depending on how close you want to be. Bunk beds just wide enough to fit two thermarests sandwiching a table with lower bunks acting as benches, a small counter with a coleman two-burner, a small wood stove, and abundant drying hooks and lines pretty much fill the space. If more than 2 of you are standing up or trying to do anything at the same time forget about it. One of you at least will end up burning your ass (literally), tripping on something or simply getting stuck in the midst of the tiny crowd unable to reach whatever you are trying to get at. These wee cabins are supplied with wood, axes and mauls, basic kitchen supplies, and a gas stove and lantern. There are a number of gaps in the chinking of all of the huts, so in colder weather puffy jackets and LJ's are worn inside until such time as sleeping bags are pulled out for the night. There are no open creeks near any of the cabins so water is made by melting snow - a constant act of labour over the wood stove. This is an environment where I feel deeply at home, tuned in to basic needs and fall easily into the rhythm of the steady puttering work of keeping warm, hydrated and well fed. There is a constant supply of small tasks, and while I am tired from the humbling days of skinning up long ascents (especially being out of 'ski shape' after only 4 days of skiing this winter) and cold weather, I find it relaxing, grounding to keep this type of busy. The right kind of 'busy'. I imagine that I could live this way for good long periods of time. I have. I spent weeks and months of my life living at the Farm, chopping and loading the wood bins daily, lighting and stoking fires, priming stoves and lamps, and melting snow for water. These things are second nature to me. I fall into them. In this world of dish washers and taps and central heat I am less sure of what to do, more likely to be idle. Life becomes less about movement and more about looking for something to move towards. Making lists and ticking boxes to help me feel accomplished, purposeful.



In hut life purpose is inherent and embodied. The shared need for basic things…water, warmth, food and rest are the driving force of every evening and morning. Throughout the night, especially in the arctic cold that gripped us this past week, we even move out of sleep intermittently, to keep the fire going to heat the space so that energy can be restored for the next day of slogging uphill.

I am always acutely aware of the primacy of water when I'm living in the field. Especially in the cold. Probably a lesson hard learned through years of guiding winter trips with dogs and people in frigid northwestern Ontario. Both needed water and lots of it. To this day I recite my aspirational '4 litres of water a day' spiel to all my students, summer and winter. How important it is for the mind, body and soul to be abundantly hydrated. How the litre of water you should be drinking first thing in the morning before emerging from your sleeping bag can make or break your day, your entire experience, on so many levels. When I am on trip I practice this ritual personally without fail, because it keeps me on my game, and allows me to be cheerful and funny at times that are anything but inherently cheery or humourous. On this trip, as with many others I was focussed on the constant and proactive production of water. It is a small thing that makes a world of difference.

Maybe it is in these small and detailed acts that we make up our calling. I know somehow for me there is a connection to my life purpose wrapped up in this repetitive and endless task of melting snow. This minute but essential act of service.

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.