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.

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.

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.