Archive for category Musings
Journey before Destination
Who are you when no one else is around?
It’s a question I have been asking myself more and more lately. Maybe it’s the pandemic, shaking up the world and changing my routines. Maybe it’s the break up with Justin. Maybe I’m just getting older and tired of my own shit.
When I am at home alone, once the dogs are walked, once the lunch is ready for tomorrow, and dinner has been consumed for tonight…. what is there? A glass of wine is the easy answer. But that has lost its charm. Have a drink to reward myself, have a little chocolate, then just…. scroll the mental diversion sites on the internet, and soon enough, it’s time for bed.
Sleep.
Wake.
Repeat.
It’s not enough just to drift through the days. I am no longer content with just getting by. I have a stable job and a good dog and a modest house. (Well ok, the bank and I share the house, but their hold is less every month!) I have achieved the conventional markers of modest success, and yet I am feeling adrift.
What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? – Mary Oliver
Perhaps for some it is enough to live life well and be assured a reward in the hereafter. I sometimes wish I could believe in the comfort of an all powerful being who has a plan and a soft embrace for weary souls. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised by such a thing later, and all my cares will seem so silly. Either way, I live a life of honour as I can, a reckoning I take up with myself, and myself alone. And in doing so, I must ask myself if each day is meaningful, if I live my best life every week. I cannot count on 99 virgins in the afterlife to sooth my every worry, so I must make these days count. Count for who, for what value? For myself, of course. This is the story of my life, whispered by the best orator of the tale, to the most rapt audience of one. We all end up in the same place, bearing the same possessions. So the destination is a given, is known, and so can be discounted. The destination is not changed by striving. It is the journey of getting there that fills my mind, that echos in my heart.
Journey before destination.
Who am I when no one else is around? No, don’t flee the question. Who? Does the anthem of my journey feed my soul? Am I fulfilled by my striving and story? If not, I am the best one, the only one, who can decide and change it.
Sit in stillness, accept the uncertainty. Examine the emotions, what brings joy, what dulls the mind? Turn my life towards joy. It is too short, too uncertain to do any thing else.
Arjun’s Poem
“If life transcends death
Then I will seek for you there
If not, then there too”
Arjun to Chrisjen
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War
Bat Wings – a Memory
When I was in grade school, my mother made me a bat. She had asked what I wanted to be for Halloween, and when I had gleefully exclaimed that I wanted to be a bat, she accepted me at my word. After all, she had been raising me for my whole life, and was surely aware of the many ways I was not a typical pink loving girl. She was aware as I was not of how I eschewed the normal girly mannerisms. I was wholly ignorant of typical gender roles, and freer for it. Eventually, I would learn how it affected me to not fit in with my peers, but for now, I was innocent of it. If I wanted to be a creepy crawly for Halloween instead of a princess, my mother saw no reason to dissuade me.
That says a lot about my mother, and the many ways she raised me to be strong and independent. Her odd daughter who would rather run wild in the slew and play with frogs wanted to be a bat for Halloween? She would make me a bat costume.
My mother took the simple and effective route of stitching black denim bat wings on an old black sweatshirt. This was quite durable, and that turned out to be a very good thing. There was a lot of hand sewing, and my mother took the opportunity to continue teaching me about sewing. I recall watching her neat stitches march along the leading edge of the wing, binding it to the arm of the sweatshirt. I marvelled at how even and perfect her stitches were. My own stitches were…. a work in progress.
Once we had the wings made, we fashioned a snout. I can’t even recall what it was made of, or how we assembled it. I remember arguing a bit with mum on exactly how it should look. Really, this was no surprise when two strong willed women worked on a project together. But it turned out, I think. The snout was only the finishing touch. The wings were the real treat.
I no longer recall the details of that Halloween either. I suppose we went out to the nearby golf course estate houses, and ran madly in the closest thing to a suburb I had ever been in. Gathering candy like tiny trophy hunters, mad with bloodlust. Or we may have gone to the local community hall, corralled up with the other kids whose parents deemed it too cold to Trick or Treat, and diverted with bob for apple games, cardboard mazes, submersing our hands in dubious darkly shrouded bowls of “brains” (cold spaghetti) or “eyeballs” (peeled grapes) and squealing with glee. Then we would collect the treat bags that some of the parents had been putting together, made with all the candy all the parents had brought, mixed and distributed. It was a heady time of year for kids whose wholesome country diet usually forbade Cheez-Whiz (too processed) and Honey Cheerios (too sugary). I can’t imagine how my parents put up with us afterwards, hopped up on the unaccustomed sugar and throwing tantrums at the slightest inconvenience.
What I remember about the Year of the Bat was more that spring, when the icy temperatures had released the foothills, and the snow once again merely decorated the top of the distant mountains. The spring runoff had surged, bringing all the frogs and ducks a young wildchild could dream of. It had ebbed again as well, letting the little depression at the bottom of our backyard hill return to a marshy spot, instead of the yellow-watered slew that housed those frogs and ducks and proved so fascinating to young me. For those few spring runoff weeks, life was grand in the slew. The snow melted, and the earth came back to life. I distinctly recall returning to the house after mum whistled us back to the house (with a real referee style whistle, as we would roam farther than a shout could carry). We would scramble back up the big hill, and my mother would turn the hose on us, admonishing her filthy children without any real surprise at our grubby state. I learned it was best to be hosed off before my brother, while the sun warmed hose offered better than the freezing cold well water it drew from. We peeled off our grey-brown clothes (no matter what colour they used to be) and shivered in the water, sluicing small rivers of muddy water off. Only then were we allowed back in the house, to clean up and make ourselves presentable for the hearty if plain fare my mother specialized in.
That summer, I found the bat costume again, and joyously pulled it back on. Now as a creature of dusk, I would run down the hill, and play on the open field below. I can recall wrapping the bat wings about myself, and trying to turn upside down. Clinging to the branch of a tree with my legs, and shielding my face from the bright sun. But that was difficult to sustain, so my agile young mind imagined time was passing, and it was now dusk. I would drop out of the tree (sometimes literally) and swoop across the field, with my bat wings extended. My arms in that costume became wings, and I flew around the field, hunting dinner, and making up the most convoluted stories of the bat colony I was a part of. The wind in my short hair assured me I was flying, and the flap of my wings became the world. I closed my eyes and soared. Hours passed this way. Just a child who refused to wear pink, racing around the gopher holes, telling stories about the bat family she belonged to.
Sometimes, the neighbour dog would come over to see what I was up to. Those were some of the best of times. The brave little bat, making cross species friendships, chasing down the evil gophers, digging holes with paw and hand! Dusk would finally actually descend, drawing those long summer evenings of my childhood to a close. The dog and I would both be called to our respective dinners. I would trundle up the hill, back to the family home, drawn to the warm glow of the windows and the irresistible call of my mother. Sometimes she let me keep the bat costume on while I ate dinner, though I can only guess at how grungy it must’ve been. She did insist I use a fork however, and not just toss the food in the air and attempt to catch it “on the wing”.
I could not tell you what became of that bat costume. I know I loved it dearly, and mended it a few times. I suppose I outgrew it eventually, and packed it away lovingly. I’m sure it was eventually whisked away by my mother, to be offered to another child who dreamed of flying. That cherished prop, to launch the imagination skyward. The costume is gone, but I still remember the long summer evenings I spent flying.
Words as a Bridge
I write. That is a thing I do, and I have been told I write well. Not all the time, mind you. But I like a lot of what I write. I convey a scene, a feeling, and understanding. I speak less eloquently, but words are the raw material of understanding. We can form soaring structures of shared knowledge, together.
But some gaps cannot be bridged by words. And I stand on one side of this chasm, throwing phrases like darts. They fly, trailing explanations like ropes. I call out for a response, your words, a reason, please help me understand.
You stand on the other side. Flinching away from my words. Your hands move, but I do not understand your gesture. You stand across.
Mute.
And all my words waver, dry up, blow away on the wind. Until I stand mute as well. Hands full of words. No longer casting them out at you. I cannot bear to see you flinch.
We stand, gazing at each other. Apart.
Some gaps cannot be bridged by words.
Quote on Love
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones
Fall 2016
Something about fall… Not even fall yet, something about the last brave weeks of summer. Something about the morning chill, the air sharp and brisk. The moisture in the air that promises a lovely afternoon, but clings to your skin in the early hours, carrying the hint of decay to your nose. Fall is coming. All these green leaves will drop, carpet the ground, and rot. The nutrients for tender spring plants next year yes, but first, the decay. The leaves cling to the branches, the last proud banner of a retreating army. The edges of the leaves on that tree are golden, crisping, as the heart sap retreats to the tree. But surely not this tree, not yet. All is well here! Summer goes on! Turn your face from the sight.
The last riot of warmth for the year, the harvest being brought in, the apples growing rosy on the branches. Perhaps it is the inevitable cold snap that always seems to arrive so suddenly to usher in the fall that drives me. Perhaps it is the lonesome wind caressing the tops of the evergreen trees, promising the bite of driven snow to come. But not yet.
Whatever it is, I find myself on the road once again. Just a short sojourn this year, a mere ten days on Vancouver Island. A wedding to attend, brave new beginnings in the end of the season. Autumn leaves make the best backdrop for new beginnings. I feel such gladness for this union, and the timing is ideal. Fall is coming.
I turn my face to the west. It hardly matters where, my limbs cry out. Just to move! As long as it isn’t fleeing, my civilized mind will gladly cry “Onwards!” in full accord with the wild feeling in the back of my mind. A veneer of control masking the by now habitual Fall travelling. Sometimes one simply learns to corral the different aspects of self into the same direction, and take the ride.
It’s not running away. Really.
Leaving Nova Scotia
Posted by Nadia in Getting There, Musings on September 23, 2015
The cool breeze came off the bay, finding it’s way through the trees to the clearing around Mum’s house. The tide was in, and the breeze always seemed to rise with the tide. The day was chilly, not too cold really, but the breeze and the humidity seemed to conspire. My toes were cold. The grass was still wet with dew from the night before.
That was one thing about Nova Scotia. The dew is a nightly occurrence, and in far greater amounts than an Albertan might be used to. If you wanted to wash your boots, simply walk through the grass early in the morning. And on a day like this, even late in the morning.
Dew makes a good environment for slugs and mushrooms and maybe crickets too. I’m not sure about the crickets, but there are a lot of them here, and I don’t recall such bugs in such amounts in Alberta. So crickets must like moisture. Their creee-ree-ree song filled the nights during my time here. I will miss them, I think. Tonight I fly for London.
Finally the dew dried, more or less, and we were able to mow the lawn. I drove the balky ride mower around the large lawn, urging it up the small hills, and clinging to the steering wheel during the downhill plunges. About a quarter of the way through the lawn, Mum came over and showed me how to drop the mower deck to the height she wanted the grass cut at. It appeared I had not actually lowered the deck, but simply turned on the blades. I wasn’t mowing the grass, I was just scaring it.
With the deck properly lowered, the grass actually got cut, and I could see the difference much easier. Amazing how I had just gotten used to the height of the grass, as it slowly grew. Oh yeah, lawns are supposed to be shorter than fields.
Dinner was a quiet affair, both my mother and I aware of the dwindling hours. I was looking forward to the lnext step of my adventure, but was sad to leave my mumm. It has been a good month here, cleaning up the property, getting rid of the detrius of a lifetime. Once the last of the glass bottles that will sell have been sold, the major debris of my grandfather and grandmother and step grandmother gone. Only the house he built left, the house my mum grew up in. And the various knickknacks in the house, of course. But the old workshop/barn he had loved and fixed so many things in? The barn that eventually became the graveyard of so many unfinished projects, and so many poorly understood items, relegated to the racoon infested reaches of the barn….. cleaned out. We managed to fill a dumpster with the old cast offs, the mouse infested clothing, the chewed and mouldering books, the old coats and old beds and old frames…. so much of it gone.
It makes me realize how the previous generation would live, how they would gather stuff and repair things, and keeps things working. Which is all well and good, until the world moves on… or the tinkerer dies. And then all that is left is the bits and bobs, and the memories of those who loved them. That seems to be the nature of the world; nothing ever stands still.
Many of the useful things have been sold off at the garage sales we had. Hopefully they will find use again at the hands of those who still tinker, and have the inclination to use them. Hopefully they will bring delight, and become memories in a new generation.
The mower makes short work of the grass. I make short work of dinner. Now only the flight is before me. The kilometers of pavement slip by, and then I am at security. Bag off, belt off, metal not detected. One last look over my shoulder, one last wave to where Mum stands, looking for this last glimpse. We mime hugging each other, then I sweep up the stairs towards my gate.
Nothing ever stands still. The sweet, the bitter, it all passes, and I move on.
Quote
“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.” -Patrick Rothfuss Wise Man’s Fear
Road to Harbin
The road wound through the darkness, the next bend hiding it from sight. Clinging to the side of the hill, following the easiest path, it was not a road made for speed. Most of the roads in the hills of Northern California are like this. Sharp corners and winding roads. The constant light touch on the brakes and engine braking, or goosing the accelerator to keep speed up and downshifting. The houses crouch on the verge, when there are houses at all. Small lights in the darkness, clustered around any even remotely flat spot.
This is not country you would want to be low on fuel in. I haven’t seen a gas station in miles, let alone one open after dark.
The bus trundles along in the darkness in front of me. Dan handles it with the ease of long familiarity, taking the corners with expert speed. I keep up in my little Civic, which we have affectionately named The Dingy. The lines on the nav lead reassuringly onward, a small flag marking our destination. Harbin Hotsprings. I have visited the place before, last fall. I had quite the insight there, and the chance to practice discerning actual danger from mere discomfort.
One last small town falls away behind us. It is not so very late, and we were able to pick up groceries in town. Fresh bread, and a mysterious jar of what claims to be Pumpkin Butter. We took the time to snack on our new purchases outside the grocery store, and Pumpkin Butter on bread is delicious. Imagine jam made out of the filling of apple pie. That sort of delicious. We licked our lips and took the small backroad out of town, headlights piercing the darkness.
Lights gleamed on the road before us. A sign invited us to slow down, and I was surprised to see the gatehouse of the springs. Dan had to renew his membership, as we had just gotten the one month card last time. As the springs are owned by a “church”, and nudity is an option, everyone who wants to visit the springs must have a membership. Dan paid the ten dollars, and we all paid our $25 a person, and went in.
The springs overcame me that night. I went to the warm pool, which I had recalled as a degree or two below the perfect long term soaking temperature. It was not the case this time. The temperature was perfect, and I felt my skin was a hinderance, the only thing keeping me from dispersing into the water. I propped myself against the wall, using one or two muscles to keep my knees locked, and I cast my mind loose. Thoughts tumbled over themselves, coming to the surface to be examined and then drifting away. I have been troubled lately, with the accusations of a friend hanging about my mind, and the slow draw of missing home. The normal fretting about cars, wondering of The Dingy would make it back to Canada, after all these rough roads and hills. I fretted over the missing headlight, which had caused me to be pulled over once or twice. The cops are very active down here. All these thoughts rose in my mind, all the things I had been fretting over, worried about, some I had been downright twisted with anxiety. I gave them no more than a moment to occupy my mind, and then I pushed them away. Some I found solutions to, some I simply came to peace with. When you cannot do anything to affect other’s perceptions, I suppose you might as well let the worry go. By the time I gave up wakefulness, my mind was more settled than it had been for the last five days.
The next morning, we went back to the pools. I once again relaxed in the warm pool, but managed to hold my self together a bit better. I made my way to the super hot pool again, and eased my way in. I found it hotter than last time, and I felt a slight tinge of distress, that my spiritual realizations of last time had not withstood to this time, enabling me to ignore the distress of temperature extremes and simply plunge into the water. Once I reached that state last time, should it not have stayed there, as an enlightened idea? I had worked so hard last time, should it not have maintained that level?
I resigned myself to a constantly eroding mental bank, and started by dipping my feet into the scaldingly hot water. I clung to the railing, cool air prickling my skin, and stood on the first step of the hot pool. I went down one more step, and was immersed to my knees. There, I noticed that it did not seem to be so very difficult. My skin protested once again that this was far too hot, but my calves were warmer than my feet, so it was not such a shock. Also, I knew I could do this. I had eased into the hot pool once before, it was possible, and I remembered the reasoning that I had taken before. My mental feet trod the path, nimble as goat feet on a steep trail. There, the air was not so cold, and it was only temporary. The water was very hot, but would not kill me. I worked my way down the steps, and waded thru the chest high pool, to stand by the pull up bar and wooden seat attached to the far wall. I stood in the water, soaking up the heat, taking it in my skin, into my body, filling like a cup, slow lassitude suffusing my limbs. When I was full, when the heat filled the cup of my body, lapping at the edge and threatening to spill over, I lifted myself up, reached up and seized the worked metal bar. My muscles contracted gently, sliding over each other like warm silk, and I swung back to sit on the wooden seat, legs still in the water. I felt the heat steam off my skin, a layer of armor between me and the chill autumn air.
I will come back here, again and again. To stimulate my mind, shake myself out of the complacency of “I can’t”.
I can. If only for a little while at a time.
The Solid Earth
Darkness claimed the windows, a pure unrelenting blackness of country night. Nearly unrelenting. Out one side, the faint gleam of the yard light could be seen, pushing feebly at the night. The trees shadowed the starlight, and the moon did not show her face. A mere slip of a thing, she hid from eyes that would see her here. The trees swayed in the breeze, their tops singing in the inhuman undulating voice of the wild things, wind against living wood. I could walk among them, unnoticed and small, place my hands on their trunks, steady and unmoving despite the frolics of their canopy, and be completely unremarkable. The earth held them up, gave their roots the purchase the impossibly tall trees needed. I could wander among them, and contemplate my own insignificance. Had I fear of my own passing, I could take out a sharp knife, metals drawn out of the earth and ground into a shape pleasing to man. I could take this edge and set it against the bark and carve my scratchings into the skin of the tree. Without fear of being swatted. Like a moth beating against a window. Unremarked. Should I suppose this means the trees are less than myself? That I can swat a mosquito, but the plant giants are so very different than I that not even hacking them to death can arouse their response? Perhaps I would better spend my time contemplating the place of all things in the world, how the trees provide paper to write on, logs to build with, wood to burn and keep man alive in the winter. How trees grow lush on graves, the bodies of the fallen feeding the net of life all around us.
My thoughts spin slowly and sedate, contemplating trees and stars and darkness, thinking on the breath rolling in and out of my lungs, the faint hunger in my belly prompting thoughts of what I might have to snack on. Dog is outside the house, and as I idly skim over a small corner of the internet, I can hear her collar jingling as she runs up and down beside the house. She passes by the window once, twice. My eyes flit over a blog post, another mention of the brutality of Oakland police to Occupation protestors.
A shiver, of the very air itself. The door I am sitting beside starts shifting in its frame, creaking and then banging. The house groans, and I feel as if I crouch like a mouse as a herd of horses thunder by. I am crouching, laptop snapped shut in my arms, body low to the ground and eyes frantic. I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my blood, my muscles twitching and electric with the ability to move. The floor rocks and trembles under my feet. I scan the air, trying to determine which way to run. Where is the herd of giant horses? What machine could this be? What is falling, over and over?
Before I can fully reason out what to flee from, the shaking stops. The house falls quiet, and the other dog barks once. I stand, eyes wide and limbs trembling. Could that have been….?
I hear the sounds of someone gently stirring in the bed just beyond the room I am currently shivering in. This person is one who is familiar with the area.
“Was… was that an earthquake?” I ask hesitantly. There can be no other explanation for this situation, so far outside of anything I have experienced before.
“Yeah, just a little one. Should be no damage.” The sleepy reply comes back, and all falls still.
A earthquake! I have never experienced an earthquake before, and now that it is over, and nothing has been damaged, and indeed, it is scarcely noticed by the others used to this area. I am thrilled to have been able to experience a small one.
But I feel slightly more wary of the earth, even as I walk about on it’s surface as usual.
Wherever you are, Be There 