Thursday, December 27, 2012

a winter's night

Winter is cold and dark. Out here in the country, on cold, dark nights, I feel very far away from everything. Like a pioneer who has only her family and her horse the home she tries to make comfortable to survive.

I am beginning, now, to feel the effects of isolation that living in the country bring. Even when people visit -- my sister and our old friend came for coffee just yesterday afternoon. Once they're gone I feel impossibly far again. When I am hungry, there is nothing to do but make do with whatever scraps of food I can find. I am used to living in the centre of everything. If I ever was hungry or lonely, I could go anywhere to find company and good food. Now it's just the two of us (and the dog) making ramshackle dinners out of strange leftovers and putting on snowpants as a part of every day's outfit.

It's true: I wear snowpants every day. I just can't stand the stinging feeling of the cold through my jeans every morning, afternoon and evening while I go to feed the horses. Meanwhile my relatively short-coated dog ploughs headfirst through snowbanks with unbridled glee. My horse has icicles on his eyelashes. I am sure he remembers a time when he was brought into a warm barn to thaw out, be brushed, ridden in a warm arena, fed, dried and brushed again before being tucked into warm winter blankets and returned to his pen. Now he has only his shaggy winter coat to protect him. There is no warm place for him to go, here.

I wonder how I'll feel in the spring. When my wonderful world of aspen forests and wide fields opens up again to greenness and warmth. Will I feel differently?

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Christmas gifts

There is a lot to do before Christmas.

Besides re-vamping my horse feed program and attempting for the first time to wean a foal from his mother's milk (is my life weird?), I am once again caught up in the insanity of making all of my Christmas gifts. This will be the third year.

This year, though, I've been away for much of the two months leading up to Christmas, so I've scaled back. If I didn't, I would go insane from the stress of frantically learning to be a better sewer, baker, candlestick-maker (literally). This year I've made sure to include at least one item that I hand-made, but have allowed myself to purchase meaningful objects to fill in the gaps.

Lately I've been missing the city. Probably for its convenience when running so many Christmas-related errands. But I also think about my neighbourhood, the familiar shops and restaurants. My friend's pub. Our group of friends. Drinking coffee in good coffeeshops, walking the dog to the store to pick up a few things. Our small house and its innate coziness.

But this morning as I walked from breakfast with my coworkers back to my house to get in my truck, the sun was lighting the treetops with the most beautiful golden, silver-edged light. The frost on the branches glowed and the stark outline of the forest softened into light. The moment was a gift.

I must learn to be content where I am. To stop constantly mining the past for better times. During the time that we lived in that little house, I thought constantly of the time before that. I miss the feeling of being swept up in the right now, a feeling I've only had three times in my life. Each of those times was when I was fully engrossed in a new community, when I was making new friends I knew would be part of my life for a long time, when I was growing and felt loved and felt important. I miss all of those times equally. And that's just the problem: what about this time?

I've been given a wonderful gift out here in the country. I will endeavour not to waste it.

Friday, December 14, 2012

winter weekend's eve

This morning brought a bright white fog. This winter is so tone-on-tone. White on white on white on grey. The inside of my farm truck frosts up. The farm dog's black fur was edged with white frost this morning when he joined me for our morning ritual of moving the horses out of the pens where they spend all night staying warm by eating hay.

It is cold out, but not too cold. Not impossible.

There are so many chores to do. Hay bales to be thrown down out of the loft into the back of my truck and distributed. An oat bin whose lid has blown off and has filled with snow. Beet pulp and molasses and new halters to be unloaded from the back of my car.

Today I received three wonderful pieces of mail. The first was a Christmas card and letter from dear friends who live in a house nestled into a hillside in southern Alberta. They are going about their daily life on their farm: caring for horses, collecting eggs from the coop. And then an envelope of two letters from a friend and past roommate who lives downtown. Her life is so different from theirs, but the common thread seems to be: we are all just trying to get our work done and be happy. And we've all got varying levels of success. But I worry about her, sometimes. The third envelope held gifts that same friend made me this spring. A small, handmade notebook and a handmade card that doubles as a coaster (I hadn't thought to use it as one, but she wrote, ps: you can also use this card as a coaster for your beer). I am so lucky to have such a friend. Her gentle skill with paper and fabric is such a gift.

Now I wonder what I will send to her. What handmade treasures I can find in my home out here in the wilderness to bring countryside to her downtown apartment.

Also, there's this: tonight my sisters and mom are coming to sleep over at my house. They are romanticized by my country dwelling. I am so happy to have them here. Their willingness to come assuages my fear that no one will ever visit me out here, that I will feel lonely and isolated, and so removed from the life I created in my busy city community.

I hold in my heart the kind of excitement kids feel on Christmas Eve. It's good to feel this way.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

finishing projects and flying away

At one o'clock in the morning, I've just finished a major work project, and am squeaking it in just before deadline. I am always afraid to let these things go, always worried that they will not be good enough. Will it be good enough?

Now I have to pack for a work trip tomorrow morning, and I don't know what to bring. How casual will this conference be? In all of my years of being a professional, I have never felt comfortable with my chosen outfits for work. Always awkward, not-quite-right choices. Trying to make certain shirts seem fancier than they really are, wearing my one pair of dress pants three times a week, that sort of thing. Why do I never seem to have any nice clothes? Where are all of my cardigans?

When I next return home, I hope I will sleep again. I might just settle into my normal life. Go to work without any huge impending projects. Crochet Christmas gifts for my friends and family. Attend Christmas parties, drink mulled wine, and try to feel like a normal human being for a while.

Friday, November 23, 2012

ungratefulness

This morning I am heavy with exhaustion, disoriented with sadness.

No sleep last night. My head felt so heavy and full. Filled with lead. Insomnia is a plague that never leaves me. I can't remember what it feels like to feel rested.

And I received some upsetting news. I know I've been writing about horses lately; it's hard not to when they're right outside my window, and I interact with them every day. It has been enriching to get to know them, learn about their individual personalities, scratch their fuzzy foreheads and warm my cold hands on their warm breath.

We have one horse who is completely blind in one eye and slowly losing vision in the other. His bad eye has died and is shrinking back into the socket, seeping pus. I don't know how much pain he's in. It's hard to tell with him: he is just a doll. Even with his limited vision, he is never easily startled. He is quiet to work around, and often approaches me in his pen to be scratched. He has been here for as long as I can remember, carting kids around like a saint for at least a decade, probably more. I don't even think he's been off the property in all that time. The vet says that once his vision goes completely in the other eye, there is a great chance that he will panic, gallop terrified around his pen, running into fences and seriously hurting himself.

I want to call a vet to put him down. It's the most humane thing to do. I understand that animals are animals, and that all life has an end.

Instead of paying for a dignified end to his life of service, those in charge have decided instead to get some money for him by selling him at auction, where he will inevitably go for meat. He is old and blind -- no one with kind intentions is going to buy him. He'll get a per-pound price, and he will be loaded into a stock trailer with a dozen other horses and taken to slaughter. He will be terrified to the last second of his life. I cannot even bear to think of him there.

Last night I cried for half an hour, knowing that today is the day. This morning, I brought him an apple and stood for a long time in his snowy pen, hugging him. With my face buried in his mane and my fingers woven into his soft winter coat, I breathed in his scent, one so familiar. Horses smell like sweet hay, mostly, mixed with something else like smell of earth. He was ever patient, standing quietly while I clung to him. I thanked him for everything he's done for us, and told him I was sorry about how we were repaying him. Even though he doesn't understand me, I told him everything will be okay. He looked at me out of his good eye, breathed his sweet hay breath into my hair. Tears came to my eyes again.

Now I'm watching him out of my office window. I've left him in to free-feed off a big round bale all day. He goes this afternoon, and I don't know when his next chance to eat will be. I want him to at least be full and comfortable when he leaves.

I wish I wasn't here for this. That if it had to be done, it could have been done sometime when I was away. So that I wouldn't have to load him onto the trailer myself, be the one to send him away. The others think I am too sensitive. Tell me he is not a person; he's only a horse. I'm not a child -- I understand that he's not a human being. But he has a personality, he feels comfort and excitement and fear. He feels pain. He has the capacity to interact with people, to be sweet to kids who have hauled him around his whole life. He has the capacity to be afraid at the end of his life.

I wish I could be in charge of this decision. I would do everything so, so differently. Instead of ungratefully discarding him at some slaughterhouse, I would put him out of his pain in comfort here in his home, where he has spent most of his life and deserves a dignified end.

Afterwards, life will go on. I won't be upset forever. There are so many other horses. So much in my life to think about besides this one particular horse. But today I am sad, and so tired, and ill-equipped to deal with this one gruesome fact of death and money.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

hinterland

Sometimes I forget what winter is like in the country. What fields of snow look like untouched by footprints and tire tracks, graders and gravel trucks. Just the delicate hoofprints of a careful deer. And even these marks will be covered by wind and fresh snow before the day is out.

The horses have grown their winter coats. This morning when I fed them, frost clung to their whiskers and eyelashes. I often worry about them, but then remember that they are built for this -- their coats are warm, they know where to stand to be out of the wind. The frost on their muzzles will disappear as the day wears on.

The land and sky today are white on white. The treeline at the end of the field looks silent and grey. Without it there would be nothing to distinguish snow from cloud. The barn looks especially red against this stark backdrop. There is a frosting on everything. Our dog is up to her chest in the yard.

In my office, I light candles for warmth. Coffee poured into cold mugs turns lukewarm. Snow on the floor by the door melts into puddles.


Sunday, November 4, 2012

a lifetime's achievement.

Earlier this summer, I rode for days in the Rocky Mountains. We looked down at sunstreaked valleys and rode up into the grey mist of an alpine cloud. It was a wonderful experience to hold in my heart: the availability of so much nature, as far as my eye could see, and me in the middle of all of it, on horseback.

This morning, I galloped a horse named Mack full-out down a beach. His hooves splashed through the incoming tide at the edge of a crystal, turquoise sea. It was something my landlocked, prairie heart has always wanted. The whip of wind and sun and ocean spray on my face, closing my eyes for a few seconds to try to remain right in the middle of the moment.

I am so blessed to have experience both sides of this coin within just a few months.

And still, when we had dismounted our horses, given them those last pats and were driving in our campervan back up the road, I thought of riding my own horse, that animal who is one of my oldest, truest friends, down the sun-dappled lane out to the back pasture in our own home. It's something about knowing who I am. Knowing how to follow my desires and hopes, but being able to return to the place that I am meant to be in.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

notes from an expedition

Journal excerpts. (Some disorganized rambling.)

Milford Sound, NZ

Sitting in a cafe (the only establishment in "town") in Milford Sound with Eric and Amy. Milford Sound might be the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It's like Cape Breton, except instead of the forested headlands, it's towering snow-capped mountains with rainforests clinging to their lower halves and clouds ringing their summits. And then, of course, there's the sea. It's dead calm. There are fjords like I've always wanted to go to in Norway. There are waterfalls coming off of every cliff face, everywhere. Moss grows on everything. Everything, everywhere, is wet and green and bursting with life from every crevice.

We took a boat trip around the fjord, and it was completely spectacular. The boat took us right up to waterfalls so that we could look up at their height and be sprayed by their mist. The coolness on my face was a blessing. One fall had rainbows reflecting through it and off the seawater, and we were surrounded by glowing, rainbow-coloured mist. Dense rainforests grew miraculously out of cliffs with no topsoil, just moss. We saw huge swaths of bare cliffs where "tree avalanches" had scraped the rockface clean.

And then there were penguins. Yellow-crested penguins, hopping about on the rocks. They were surprisingly small. There were fur seals, too, warming up on the rocks. They looked smaller and more refined than seals I've seen in Canada. One was sleeping curled in a circle like my dog does when she's especially exhausted. He must have had a hard swim.

Our world is such a wonder. It is so full of so many spectacular things. It's up to us to just enjoy them. To meet people, be changed by them, share experiences with them, love them and let them love us back.

I wish I could make my brain remember everything.

Wanaka, NZ

After much discussion and drama, I've sent Amy and Eric off to do a gruelling 18km, 1300m elevation gain hike. I didn't really want to go. I'm so stiff from our foggy march up to Key Summit near Milford Sound the other day. I just couldn't imagine forcing my limbs up a mountainside today. It's eighteen kilometres one way.

So now I'm sitting on a park bench at the beach, looking out at Lake Wanaka and the snow-capped mountains beyond. After I finish my coffee, I'm going to wander around town for a while. There's something easy and relaxing about wandering aimlessly with no one waiting for you or wishing they could be doing something else. There's something gratifying about pleasing no one. Worrying about no one.

But only for a time, because happiness only really works properly when it's shared. It might be the main reason we're all still here, on earth, slogging it out side-by-side. Who cares if you have an amazing experience if you can never share it with another soul?

One last thing before I wander: a mother duck just wam by with a row of tiny ducklings. They look like they just hatched yesterday. She keeps turning around and quacking instructions to them, gathering up her tiny, chirping hatchlings and keeping them close by. It is so lovely to be in a place where it's springtime. Just last week, fall was giving way to winter, once and for all, and I wasn't ready to release the fairer seasons yet. I'm never ready for the long settling-in of our coldest, bleakest months. And now I've been blessed enough to skip straight ahead to spring, just for a little while.

By the lakeside, I said a prayer of thanks to God for this precious gift.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

ostrich

In exactly one week, I'm going to fly as far around the world as I can get without starting to come back.

I do not have time to be posting this: the work is overwhelming. How can I be going away for a month right before so many deadlines?

But it's in my nature to put my head in the sand when things feel this way. Are ostriches living very stressful lives? I don't know.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

thanksgiving day

Several months ago, I put some Autumn Gold pumpkin seeds into tiny pods of dirt and waited on tenterhooks for them to germinate. Seeing those first green sprouts push their way upwards from darkness is one of my favourite things. To go to bed one night with a tray full of dormant dirt pods, and to wake up the next morning to see something like life.

Last weekend, my sister made pumpkin pies out of the two darlingest pumpkins I've ever seen. It's kind of wonderful, knowing some part of the harvest meal we eat every year at Thanksgiving was actually harvested from something I nurtured months ago in the sunny living room window of a house I don't even live in anymore.

This weekend saw our ranch home jam-packed with family. With kids playing outside with ponies and with my sisters, parents and in-laws warming up indoors with wine and apple cider. A holiday like Thanksgiving was just made to be celebrated out in the country. Where there are leaf-strewn lanes and horse pastures and so much space to just let your heart expand with so much gratitude for the gifts we've been given.

And it's not enough just to know that these wonderful things -- the horses, the space, the beauty -- are mine to enjoy. You can only really ever feel the worth of something lovely when you share it with others.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

back pasture

Last night I bolted awake from a dream that one of our horses in pasture was colicking and dying in front of me and I couldn't help him or get him to stand up. On top of that, he had a nasty gash on his hindquarter, one that would need stitches and was bleeding heavily. In my dream I was panicking, imagining the sound of the gunshot that would be sure to ring out in that back pasture if I didn't get the horse up and walking; if I couldn't bandage the wound and find someone to help me.

After I woke up, I sat in my bed in the dark and thought about the herd back there, hastily growing winter coats, eating what's left of the grass, huddling together at night while coyote cries sound all around them.

All night I lay awake, worrying that they might not have enough grass to last them, fearing one of them might have broken a leg, imagining the horse I'd dreamt about and trying to picture him just fine, sleeping peacefully with the rest of the herd there to protect him. My mind turned over this way until three o'clock in the morning.

Today, when I drove out to check on them, I saw that the horse was fine. He stood grazing, looking perfectly normal. I hugged him and stroked the side of his face. It was not a premonition or a vision -- it was just a dream. Two other horses were lying down, snoozing in the sun. I'm not new to horses; I know that they like to lie down sometimes on sunny days, but I still made them both get up, and I put my ear to their bellies to listen to their gut sounds, just so I could be sure they were fine. I made Eric help me bring extra hay out to them, just in case the October grass wasn't enough.

I am spooked. I have an anxious feeling inside of my chest when I picture the herd I'm supposed to be caring for, out there all alone. But it's not a new place for them -- they go out there at least a dozen times a year to run free and eat grass and be horses. 

I don't know what I'm so afraid of.

This is just one thing like everything else.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

in the country

More than anything, it's pretty here. The leaves are all changing and when I walk up the winding road and crunch them under my feet, I feel a certain type of happiness that can't be replaced by the nearness of a shopping centre or the availability of a bus route.

On Sunday, the two of us rode horses together. Like every day this past week, it was a very sunny day. Our dog followed along behind us, diving into puddles in the low-lying areas of the neighbour's cow pasture and jumping high through the tall grasses down by the lake. As we crested the hill on the road out to the back pasture, we spotted a coyote standing in the middle of the meadow, staring at us, unmoving. If he were our dog, he would have looked at us for a moment and gotten distracted and continued on his way.

But we must never underestimate the patience of a wild animal. One who has learned to be careful, for his own survival. We turned around and went another way, leaving him to whatever he had planned to do in the middle of that sunny afternoon in the wild.

I am not doing much writing in my job, which disappoints me. I have not been working on communications materials or writing grants, because much of my time is eaten up tending to animals and taking groups out on trail rides (through coyote country). I find myself dealing with all manner of animal problems. A llama that doesn't eat enough, kittens who are inbred. A horse with a mysterious patch of hair missing.

Also: I have learned to drive the tractor. I feel too powerful behind that wheel. Like I could smash through anything, destroy everything. I don't, of course. I just use it to pick up bales of hay and drop them for horses to eat in their pens. They are grateful and constantly hungry, or else it seems they are.
Sometimes I wonder: is this my life?

The house is big. In our old house, we would have conversations between rooms, not raising our voices. Now I don't think he could hear me in the living room even if I yelled from the bedroom. And it takes a very long time to vacuum. And there are problems we've never had before. Things to do with well water and weird bugs and the ever-present possibility of mice.

I worried, before we moved, about whether we'd fill up all of the spaces. It seemed impossible, but we have. We've spread ourselves out into all of the corners of this place so easily. It feels cozy, now. Like home. I've agreed to host Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Winter will be something else.









Thursday, July 5, 2012

a new adventure

We're moving in September. It feels too soon. We just settled into this little house, and already we're wrenching ourselves out of it.

The new house is too big. Why do we need so many bedrooms? How will we ever fill the enormous living room with our one couch and hand-me-down coffee table? It seems ridiculous.

But when I see the house sitting at the end of the field, I get flutters of excitement. I love the country. I can't wait to walk down to the barn to see Sebastian in the mornings. To retreat to the forest to dream up poems. To let my dog run wild.

I've never lived out of the city. Not really. I've lived seasonally at the ranch, but it was a temporary home. I never had to move my couch there before. Or my desk. Or my bed. These items are what really makes it a permanent home, I think.

So we'll live in the country and I will learn to drive a tractor and a horse trailer. I will drive to get the mail (a foreign concept to me). I will try not to get my car stuck in the driveway and try to keep the dog from running away. I could plant a huge garden or ride my horse right up to my kitchen window, if I wanted to.

This will be an interesting adventure.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

a little bit country.

Well, I'm awfully close to being a professional cowgirl, at this point.

The other day, as I galloped a horse across an open field plumb in the middle of the workday, I thought to myself: "my life is weird."

I took a trip three weeks ago with my sister to the west coast. We bobbed around in zodiaks looking for whales and sea lions, drank beers around beach bonfires and hiked through old growth forests. On the way back to Alberta, just as the last time I spent any time away, I felt my heart opening across those prairies. Have you ever felt free and grounded at the same time? It's how I feel about the land sometimes.

Tonight I took my dad to a movie for his Father's Day gift, and as I drove home through Garneau, the usual wave of nostalgia washed over me. I will be leaving this city to live in the country in September. I feel like I miss it already. I don't know how to deal with the constant nostalgia -- I feel wistful for just about everything. Even the bad things.

On the trip, I stopped taking my medication. I haven't taken it since, but the lethargy, the lack of productivity, the clenched feeling in my chest -- they creep back in. I thought for a few days that maybe they wouldn't.

Tomorrow, I have three horses to ride. I think I'll wear my cowboy hat. I am the real deal, here in Alberta, it seems.

Monday, May 14, 2012

what you may find on an Albertan lakeshore

I spent this weekend picking my way along an uninhabited lakeshore with my dog trotting along ahead of me. She was chasing birds and gleefully bounding in and out of the waves while I contemplated what this lake might have been like a hundred years ago.

I've been reading a book of some of Grant MacEwan's writings. He is the namesake of my alma mater, but he was also a gifted writer and important conservationist, among many other things. His work has been satisfying my craving for stories of Western Canada as it was before the land was ripped up in search of oil, before cities sprawled on out of sight. 

On one of our walks down the shoreline, we met a beaver near his lodge. He swam away from us most urgently, while we admired the craftsmanship of his home. In the time MacEwan writes about, this beaver's pelt was highly prized, so much so that our country's animal emblem was nearly totally extirpated. But these clever creatures would not be wiped from existence. To his credit, the beaver is resilient and resourceful. A tireless worker and a keystone contributor to his ecosystem -- his community.

I will try to be more like him in the future.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

pioneering

So often, I wish I were carving out life in the wildest west. That it could be a hundred-and-ten years ago, and I would rely on the strength and speed of horses to take me where I need to go. I think I could be pulling rocks out of a field in the unexplored Alberta prairie.

I wish I didn't know what it was like to have excess. Imagine not knowing what it's like to sit comatose in front of some electronic device or another. If lying around were not an option.

But it's too late for me; I already know what it's like to have this home and its refrigerator and a television and a computer and a cell phone. I doubt anyone can really leave these items and live pretending they don't exist, once they've lived with them and loved them for their usefulness.

I could have been a pioneer, if only I'd been born in a different time. I'm frustrated that my current self is not strong enough or determined enough for that life. Not at all, now that I'm already a quarter of a century into a certain way of life.

The task at hand is to find somewhere those two kinds of lives can meet.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

twenty-five

Green grass and buds on my apple tree at last. I thought they'd never come. I've been plotting my escape to somewhere with real trees for weeks.

It's been a busy week. I turned another year older, and had more celebrations than I'd planned. I feel like I've done a million things this weekend. I bought an asparagus plant for my sister, searched three greenhouses until I found Autumn Gold pumpkin seeds (as I hate to deviate from whatever Lois suggests -- she knows best, doesn't she?), I cleaned the house, went to the farmers' market and bought a ham and some bread, had tea, wandered around the city with my sister, came back to a surprise party in my back yard, ate veggie burgers and drank beer and sat around a campfire with family and friends. And that was just on Saturday.

Just now I've filed an article I've been putting off (its deadline is today and I only just finished it). I'm sitting in a cafe downtown drinking chai while my husband is just a block away, digging up the road and wrecking havoc on traffic.

I am finally, finally going out to the lake this weekend and I can hardly wait. It has been too many months since I've stood on the beach by myself, staring out at the lake and willing that fluttery, anxious feeling in my chest to go away.

I've got five or more articles due this week before my dog and I can get away to the relative wilderness of the cabin lot. They might as well put me on payroll. All in all, it's not a bad gig.

Friday, April 27, 2012

teapots

It's the end of April.

These past four months have been rolling away faster than I can keep up with them. Have I been busy? I'm not really sure -- it certainly feels like it, doesn't it? Still, I don't really have much to show for myself for the past 120 days.

Some things that are not done:

1. Seeds haven't been started. I have a whole envelope bursting full with seeds. Tomatos, marigolds, arugula, basil, dill, cucumbers, pattypan squash, poppies. All dormant.

2. My books are not in order. I mean my financial books. Being self-employed is so much more than just doing what you love. I love to write and edit; I think I'm good at it. But after I've written and edited, there is the matter of invoicing. Depositing. Bookkeeping. I never meant to work the position of accounts receivable, but here I am, doing it (and poorly) and floundering in my own disorganization.

3. The knobs on our kitchen cabinets are still teapots. Still teapots. When we moved in, we said, "well, the first thing to go are those stupid teapots." But we cannot agree on a single knob in all the land. There are 403 knobs to choose from at Lee Valley. We didn't remotely agree on any of them. And none of the knobs at Home Depot, Rona, the ReStore, Home Re-Useables, or Anthropologie. Some of the teapots are broken or missing, and the doors shut so tightly. I have to pry the cupboard where I keep the mixing bowls open with a knife. Every time. For the past year.

4. I am behind on work projects. All the time. Every day.

In addition, the house is always a mess, we haven't done our taxes, the dog doesn't get walked enough, I've seen my horse only four times in the past four months, we're living down to the bottom of every paycheque.

Now I'm sitting in a cafe waiting for my meeting to show up for a potential freelance job. I hope I get it, but at the same time, I'm worried it'll just add to the list of things I'm not doing a good enough job with.

Snow is smothering the tiny new buds on my apple tree.

Spring is weird.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

wistfulness

Today an old friend had his birthday party in the community hall next to the riding arena where we spent all of our teenaged summers. There's no sand now; it's grown in with grass. We stood in the middle of it in our nice shoes while the sun set. I looked around, pictured us together there, riding our horses around the outside of the arena on the springy lawn. Pictured her car there, where she used to park it when she taught riding lessons. Thought about the sound of her voice ringing out through summer evenings.

It was a strange sensation, standing right on the spot where my best friendships formed, where our closeness began, and feeling so removed from the environment, it was like I was looking at it for the first time. The place isn't ours anymore. It was like visiting somewhere that only looked similar to the real place, the one in the past. And like always, I missed her fiercely.

Still, I can go look at this place whenever I want, and if I squint at it, it looks close enough -- and I don't think I'll ever stop trying to feel close to her. Close to how we all were back then, before we were touched by death and growing up and moving on.

And it has been another long winter. It doesn't seem right to complain; the weather has been very kind. No minus forties or snow drifts up to my shoulders. But I haven't had my fair share of bird songs or tall trees or long, aimless wanderings on horseback. I miss the country, and the lake, and bare feet.

If I had to pick a feeling to characterize my life, it would be wistfulness, I am very sure.


Friday, February 24, 2012

the nature of things

these past few days i've felt a poem coming on.

or something like a poem. my head has felt in the right place -- a place you can't force it to be in; it just doesn't work that way.

this weekend i think i'll plan my garden. it's time to start seeds in my sunny front window. i look forward to the small joy of seeing that first speck of white and green appear in the soil. proof that life works, and goes on, and the nature of things is to grow.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

love and some verses

sitting in a cafe trying to bang out an article i know nothing about. it isn't going very well. i am staring off into space and drinking my coffee too slow so it's cold. i want to go home, crawl into my bed, and close my eyes. my eyes are tired.

i'm listening to the song we signed our marriage register to. i was never capable of keeping it together during emotional moments (i have cried in front of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in my lifetime), so i was teary-eyed and my nose was running and i didn't have a tissue. i watched my best friend sign her name on the witness line and i felt eric's hand on my shoulder and i looked out at all of the people watching and thought to myself, "what if the song ends before we're done?"

i am obviously not the best at staying in the moment.

all of this to say i'm three days away from deadline and i haven't written a single word. 

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

dressage in the wintertime

I guess there's nothing stopping me from starting my work day at 2:30 PM at a coffee shop. Still, I feel guilty. It is a marvellously sunny day outside, and I wish I were riding a horse through a wide prairie. This wish will probably never go away.

I have been thinking about her a lot lately. She's always there, somewhere, but these past two weeks she has been at the forefront of my thoughts.

It's something to do with thinking about horses. With bringing my shaggy horse in from the pasture, cleaning him up, pulling his mane back to a respectable length. Schooling dressage alone in a quiet, cold indoor arena that reminds me so much of the arena at the old barn where we all met. Something about not being sure what it is I'm working towards when I ask for flexion and bend, when I ask for more impulsion, aiming for steady straightness and quiet transitions. There's no real reason for working towards these things, when there is no end result in mind and no one there to tell me should be able to do it, or to tell me I actually can do it. To congratulate me when it's done.

Without her it seems sort of pointless.

It could just be that it's winter and we're just as far in as we'll ever be out. It's a good season to be wistful.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

office space

there's a for-rent sign in the top floor window of the noble building. i have always loved that building. the hallways smell like cookies and baking bread from the cafe downstairs. it's old, and a little rickety (squeaky floorboards and old windows) and it's charming. i loved working in that building.

the windows of the suite for rent face south-east. imagine the sunshine in the mornings. i imagine renting it with a couple of other writers. having a warm, bright space to work. eating sandwiches from downstairs and coffee from across the street. contributing, once more, to the community in garneau.

but it will not be so.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

to help me remember

Today is one of those days I'd like to ride my horse through the countryside and just think about landscapes.

I don't get the urge to ride horses very often in the wintertime -- often it seems like a cold, unpleasant chore. A long drive, treacherous roads, numb toes and icy fingers. I've gone almost two months without the motivation to go see my equine friend. He has grown fat and his winter coat has grown long. On really cold days I think about frost on his whiskers and on the ends of the beard he grows to keep warm.

I saw him on Tuesday. I met one of my best friends at the barn to clip his winter fur so that I could ride him inside without dealing with an overheated, sweaty mess of a horse. It was like old times, standing around in barn aisles, laughing together, talking about horses and our lives. It brought me back to the place I loved -- a place I'm not sure we'll ever get back.

After he was snug in his winter blankets and I drove home on the dark highway, I once again felt wistful. And sad.

Now I want to go back and feel the soft velvet of his nose on my hands and take him on long rides alone (I wish they could be there to accompany me, like old times -- but they won't; they haven't been for a long time).

The difference between now and then is that I have other priorities. I can't go out to the barn -- I have to work. I have deadlines looming and dozens of emails to reply to. Back then, going out to ride was the one rigid aspect of my schedule that everything else had to revolve around. Now it's just something to fit in now and again.

Sometimes I think the only reason I still own him is to help me remember.

To have something to show for it all.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

a complicated balance

this weekend i have been thinking of three things:

1. wilderness, and how much i want to be out in it.
2. family, and how blessed i feel to be a part of mine.
3. community, and how i can become more connected with it.

i have been busy with work lately, which makes me especially desirous of those three values.

today i participated in community, had lunch with good friends, and then came home to work (and it's such a solitary affair, this business of being a freelance writer).

now the day is over, and i'm drinking the tea that i let get cold on the nightstand, and i've got oatmeal chocolate chip muffins in the oven and i keep wondering how it is we're supposed to balance all of the elements of our lives if we want to make our homes and our money.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

winter cabin

i wish there were some place outside of the city i could go in the wintertime. if it were summer and i was desperate to escape the city, i would go to any number of places i know. but in the winter, it seems there's nowhere to go. it feels like i'm walled in by dangerous temperatures. if i leave the warmth of the city, i just won't make it.

i am longing for a winter cabin. someplace small, maybe on a lake, where my dog and my husband and i could hole up for a few days every now and again. where i could sit very quietly and listen for the tiniest sounds. i could write poems and the two of us could play scrabble.

sometimes i long to feel remote.

but i don't know of any such place.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

cold snap

everyone talks about the cold.

they shouldn't be surprised. 

we live in a part of the world where the landscape can kill you with only a breath. the air cracks in my lungs out on the porch when i step out to get the mail. and this is how it has always been.

this climate is not violent, though, really. it is a lack of violence, actually, when the earth settles and everything seizes. we are all clenched in a fist. everything has to wait. 

the wilderness clutches inside itself something green and always knows the best time to unfurl it back into the world.

and in the meantime, i'll wait under covers with cups of tea and lots of work to do until it's time to wake up. to shake free.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

saturday's spinsterhood

this evening we sort of did the dishes. we washed, dried and put away half of them, leaving seven scummy mugs and a big mixing bowl i used to make sweet potato pancakes in the sink to soak. i cleared about a million empty bottles off the kitchen table (read: junk repository) and eric took them out to the garage.

he's now gone playing shinny hockey in the falling snow under floodlights in the dark with his friends.

and i'm at home with three dogs (which is too many for my wee house -- two of them don't even belong to me) contemplating very serious matters: should the squares of my afghan be six inches or eight? how will i organize them? how long will this take me? have i chosen the right yarn?

it's saturday night. i feel like making mulled wine and having friends over feeling warm and well-surrounded by loved ones.

but actually, i am alone. planning afghans with too many pets.

spinsterhood would have suited me.

Friday, January 13, 2012

dark pines under water

trying to remember some poems of mine that i like.
keep thinking of "dark pines under water."

i tell my brain those weren't my words, but it doesn't believe me.
it wants those words to be mine.

my memory is a row of sinking pines.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

how to untangle a ball of yarn

Untangling yarn requires the utmost patience and the lightness of touch.

I spent last night and part of this morning with my fingertips buried in soft white yarn, remaining calm and stationary except for the smallest movements of my hands in the tangled ball.

Pull gently, never pull anything tight.
Follow strings through into the centre of the mess.
A gentle loosening, over and over.
One small movement at a time.

Coaxing freedom, never insisting and never forceful. Only lightness.

I have never felt more patient.

The afghan is on its way.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

winter promises

This morning I answered my cell phone with, "good morning, Deanna speaking" and felt real and and professional. It was a work-related call. I chit-chatted amiably and respectfully and hung up feeling refreshed and ready to work.

Now I'm sitting in a cafe, my notebook open and blank, my thoughts (some strategy for how I'm going to dig into a big new project) are incubating in my brain and I'm just sipping tea and staring into space and trying to gather up all of the ideas and plans and force them to be something real.

Oh, also: it's a new year. Besides a joint resolution with Eric not eat any more McDonald's, I've been reluctant to make self-promises. Everything I want seems too vague. Stupid blanket statements like "be more productive" have never served me in the past; why would I think they'd do me well just because it's January?

But there are a few little things that I want. I want to better organize my kitchen to avoid the inevitable piles of stuff we don't know what to do with. I want to make an afghan out of granny squares like the one my parents used as a bedspread throughout my childhood. I used to picture their bed as a field of flowers. It seems a place I'd like to go to sleep in. I think I want to make another chapbook; of course, first I must write poems. I want to plant more vegetables this year than last year and actually tend to them properly, rather than leaving them to fend for themselves and produce what they will.

But I am not good at keeping promises. So I won't commit just yet.

In the meantime, it is still the dead of winter, but has been unseasonably warm. I can't keep my mind from wandering. I keep thinking about my clothesline. Standing in my bare feet in the grass, hanging sheets and tank tops.