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There are times in life when we think there are no surprises left, that we can predict each day, the hour-by-hour clock watching. We know we’ll get up, go to work, have time for some exercise if we’re lucky, time to walk the dog and get a breath of fresh air, and time to buy and make dinner, again, we say, if we are lucky. But through it all there is uncertainty. Jobs are terminated. Strange things grow in or on our bodies. We win a small prize on a scratch ticket, find money in an old coat pocket, enough for a premium coffee and a snack.

I have a dear friend who used to take note of words and images as he walked down a city street. If he saw a truck go by that bore the name of a friend on it, he’d say that the universe was sending him a message, perhaps to get in touch with this distant friend or to write them a letter.

In this day to day I described, we are sent messages, sometimes as subtle as a dragon fly alighting on our shin for a moment. This summer my pond became some kind of biological otherworld. I never actually changed all the water and got it completely clean from the winter’s ravages. I added some organic matter to help it along, as well as plants, hoping they would circulate the water. With our rain and heat this summer there was a lot of algae growth which I removed not-regularly-enough. But the plants thrived, and I used a small pump to keep the water moving. Birds and frogs took part with splashes and plunges.

The pond continued being a pond throughout the summer, the water hyacinths multiplied as did other things, and some stuff just disappeared. I have to say the garden has been overwhelming this summer, with ambitious planter boxes, plantings and upkeep, so, you could say I didn’t stop and smell the roses, for all of this activity.

The other day as I was doing some much needed watering I saw these lovely purple flowers growing up from the plants in the pond. I scolded myself for not noticing their arrival. I had no idea that flowers were part of this plant. After the scolding I thought of the wonderful surprises we are presented with, that sometimes go unnoticed and at other times delight us, and remind us that perhaps there is a reason to believe that some good can come our way, sometimes sending a message of beauty or sometimes just being a beautiful messenger.

When I was a kid we lived in a neighbourhood with lots of trees that grew out of a moist but solid soil. So it was a dark place in our front and back yard and anything you might want to grow, like a flower or a vegetable, didn’t stand a chance.

At our summer cottage the situation was similar, the ground was hard and you could barely get grass to grow. I remember trying to plant carrot seeds in the only area that got sun, which was also a path to the neighbour’s cottage, and the use of their well. On this well travelled path carrots never appeared.

For some strange reason I have always had a strong need to see something grow out of the ground as a result of my efforts. At a student house in university a friend and I managed to grow some cucumbers in a sunny patch of grass beside an alley. We called them pickles –– they were quite small –– but we were delighted.

Whenever I had the occasion, a sunny balcony, even a cold shady north facing one, a fire escape, communal stairs in co-op housing, a sliver of sunny grass viewed from a basement apartment, a neglected backyard just waiting to be tilled, I have been drawn to the soil. I am not saying I am much good at growing things, but there has been a definite determination over the years.

Now that I am living on actual arable rural land, I am overwhelmed at the possibilities. The soil is clay and rocky, but with a pic-axe I have persevered and slowly, against the will of stubborn bunnies eating the greens and chipmunks eating the berries, there has been some success. True, I may have bitten off more than I can chew in terms of the maintenance and upkeep, but I am sure at some point we (me and the garden), will hit our stride. In the meantime. I am chopping, eating, displaying or freezing my trophies!

Early April and I am reminded how much I hate this month and am perpetually betrayed by it. I grew up thinking April was spring, the colour of easter eggs, tulips and birthday presents. It seems over the years, that April has promised more than it has delivered, to me. Yes, the skies are clear and blue, and the sun it right there, fighting to come up earlier, even with setbacks like the end of daylight savings time. But I look at the ground and wonder if all the bulbs died over winter, until something surprises me. This year I have faithfully tossed lettuce, chard and kale seeds into the ground, in hopes that June vegetables will be forthcoming. This afternoon was the first time that I felt perhaps the warmth and light of the sun has penetrated the field out back, as well as my locked shoulders and taut witholding skin. I got to my knees and looked to the southwest to see the clouds break apart with the promise of sun and a warm breeze to come by the end of this day. I put my arm around my dog and we put our faces into the warm wind as though we could see summer making haste apologetically…

We head out onto the road late in the afternoon, my dog and I. Recently he drags me along as he looks for the perfect place to pee and then the perfect place, right across the road from the lone house on the cross road, where a big female rottweiler lives, to poo. He likes to mark his territory right there. There is so little on the road at this time of day, and year, but my eye and my dog’s nose are trained for the tell tale signs of earlier traffic. Trails into the woods mark the frequent use of coyotes and fishers, turkeys and deer. There is rarely a feeling of solitude, just tranquility. As we round the corner and the trees give way to a broad meadow, the sinking late day sun greets us, the horizon so low that I swear I can see the warm sunny west coast sky somewhere over the Pacific. I think of a friend who lives out there, in LA, surrounded by the busyness, the activity, looking at the burning orange of the California sun. I button my jacket against the chill and fantasize climbing on a big warm plane and arriving out on the coast in time for dinner on a terrace while the warm breezes blow in from the sea.

But I wouldn’t trade this out-of-the-way-ness. Most of my mind is wrapped around what I see on our walk: the stain where the mouse was squashed, where I peeled it off the road and tossed into the ditch, where others could take care of it. The place where a feral cat met its end. The curve in the road that looks like Brigadoon, but is a hazard in the summer when the grass is tall and drivers go fast. The huge tree where someone has carefully arranged three piles of nuts. The poop from an animal that is not domestic by any means, judging from the amount and variety of roughage. The old fence that looks like a magic portal to another dimension. The place where the pheasants startled me one day, a deer the next and turkeys the next.

It would be a waste –– and perhaps I’ve learned the hard way –– not to stay present on this walk. Eternity doesn’t seem long enough to enjoy it, so it is worth experiencing every footstep. We turn back now, I say “crossing” and poodle dutifully obeys. We cross the road and the wind that was at our back, now weaves into my jacket, my face, my fingers. It is getting darker, the walk home seems longer than our outward journey, now, with my shoulders raised and my back tight.

http://ow.ly/ewZYJ
lay vs laid, lain etc…

Incent or incentivize? http://tinyurl.com/d8u4jud

 

My mother died just over a year ago. I didn’t really have the inclination to keep up with the blog after that. I suppose it’s because I thought she was probably the only one reading it. Ah well, in that time I did have things I wanted to share. A couple of weeks after she passed away, I noticed a sky that was overwhelming in its absolute gloriousness; the clouds were mountainous and had parted to let through a huge array of beams, the kind of thing you see in the movies, I’m sure there was something like it in the ten commandments.

I remember living in Vancouver and, one night, after going through the pain of being dumped by an on-the-rebound short lived relationship, I was walking across the Burrard street bridge on my way from work as a barista in Kitsilano, back to my studio in the West End. I paused at one of those small decks overlooking the passage into False Creek. The night was clear, characteristically for the dry Septembers, and the sky filled with stars. I looked up and knew, with no question, that I wasn’t alone. There was too much out there–the dark mountains and the full starry sky beyond and above, to think that I wasn’t part of something, what, I know not. But there was an incredible feeling of comfort that has never left me. Not since that night. I can’t say that it takes the shape of anything, it is just the knowing that I am connected to it all. To all of this.

Now back to the sky that caught my breath after my mother had died. When I looked up to that immense canyon leading out to the blueness and brightness and so full of light, I had to smile. It was as if my mother had kicked me in the butt to say “damned if I’m outta here.” Though I have felt the sorrow of not being able to be with her physically and tell her my stories, for which she was always the best audience, I feel comfort in knowing in my heart that she is in a place of pure light and love.

I remember walking in the field days later, crying and hoping that she, wherever she was, would not be sad at seeing me crying and missing her. Inside my tears I knew I would survive, although there were other tearful times when I told myself “I didn’t sign up for this kind of emotional pain.”

Where I am living is close to nature with few distractions of sounds from the man made world, just the odd vehicle on the distant road. Visually I see only things of nature, when my back is to the house. I think it makes it easier to sense the messages that surround us moment to moment.

I had violets grow in my garden last spring that I never planted and were coincidentally my mother’s favourite flower. The morning of my birthday, recently, the cardinal which I haven’t seen for over a year, dropped by while I stared out at the trees with my coffee. My mother and I used to talk about the cardinals. She even enlarged a photo of one that I had sent her, and put it in a Christmas calendar for me. These things happen frequently and I have to smile.

We have had to abandon the phrases we grew up knowing––March coming in like a lamb and going our like a lion or vice versa––for blank stares into the sky and into the west to ask “what next.” The winter has been a prolonged, extended, drawn out sentimental departure, always turning back for one last glance, maybe a quick kiss or a tight and fleeting embrace. But winter couldn’t say goodbye, meaning that slowly budding tulips have lingered just above the ground long enough to have their heads bitten off, and that the bird feeders continue to be busy with activity––the level of food dropping as quickly as the temperature at night.

The deadly storms in the southern US send us their dregs to rip across our land, filling the sky with a grey foreboding, lashing rain from all directions and shaking the house with wind. Thunder comes now at odd times of year; summer storms hit us in spring, fields brim with water before overflowing onto roads, and when the sky clears and we believe the tempest has departed, the clear skies are filled with a bluster that blows the dog off the road and into my legs.

Is this climate change, or are we simply saddled with impatience to get our hands into the dirt, and dig and plant and have the garden fill up with that familiar short lived but intense tropical lushness? I long to know just what it was I pulled off the discount rack last year, the very last of the last of the perennials that is now fully comfortable and finding the nourishment it needs, below the soil. I need to rearrange, find a new home for the raspberries, perhaps replace that large hole with some rose bushes. I need to feed my senses, taste the earth’s miracles, smell the smells, and listen to the array of species of frogs, peepers, crickets and toads. All those things which winter lacks like a jealous lover. Winter, your time has come…

It has been “that time of year” for over a month now. We wait for the sun and rain to warm the earth enough for roots to spread and bulbs to swell. If you look closely you will see that something is starting to happen. Despite the extended periods of cold, life remains intact just feet from our steps. I am starting to believe this spring might be a short one. My feeling is that, as it was years ago, we went from too cold to too hot, didn’t wear wind breakers or move from sweaters to shirts to t-shirts. Summer came upon us, dead leaves and dirty piles of snow shrinking while dusty small tornados ricocheted down the street. And as for April, it was only just barely enough after a long winter. For now I have no choice but to wait and plan: a bigger vegetable garden, where to move the raspberry bush, and how long I can wait before getting a load of soil and mushroom compost delivered. In the meantime I’ve filled my kitchen with pots of hyacinths and daffodils from the grocery store. I can’t wait much longer for 400 bulbs to bloom, at this stage I think they must be at their most tempting for rabbits and other members of the yard family, and may not make it much further.

It was the kind of morning where grey is what welcomes me after I realize that I am not going to see a sun rise. I could wait just a moment more in the hopes that it is not grey, but a soft predawn blue. But no. Soon there is enough light to see the wind whip the fine cold snow through the meadow, create small hurricanes and tornadoes, exit stage left, angrily, between the trees, and head east, but soon return to stir up even more trouble, trying to frighten the birds from the yard, startle the rabbits who are hunkered and fluffy against the fury. This fine powdery snow is all I need to know it is biting cold. This tempest soon gives way to lake effect and the constant thick stream of bigger flakes past the house. Perhaps it isn’t as cold, but I have steeled yourself against it to get to the car, and, once inside, care only about the front and rear defrost doing their job.

Out on the road, spindles of snow slip across my path, fired by a long wind from far away. In places the field seems to continue onto the road. The odd truck is in the ditch because it took a drift too quickly or not seriously enough, or didn’t see it. The small drifts pull at the car, trying to tug it to the side, like navigating a boat on a particularly wavy day.

Back home I notice the sky has opened up for a moment, and I grab my camera, not that everything else was not photo-worthy, but here the sky seems to be exposing its mouth, throat, and lungs, inhaling back into the space from where the strong wind has blown most of the day.