Saturday, March 30, 2024
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Sharing the Wealth
Today, the rain is thick. One or two degrees would return the stuff to snow. I woke up to six fresh inches as a flock of Canada geese circled above hoping to find a route up through the pass. They've yet to drop off the first of the hummingbirds who hitch a ride the middle of each April. I'm here to greet the hummers though this year I'd rather accompany the geese farther north.
A geographical fix is in order. I heard Christy Tengs of the Bamboo Room talking about getting out of Haines for a mini-vacation. She planned to have a weekend in Skagway, 16 water miles away and I got excited.
Instead of Skagway, I drove forty miles to town and another eight out the peninsula to cozy up with Yarona Blue, my two year old grand-daughter. She and her mom and dad just finished crafting their fine little house on the bluff where I found them toasty and dry, watching the snow come down. They were busy shaping miniature wooden airplanes, painted in vibrant primary colors, carefully detailed. The planes will hang in a mobile when Sarah and Chorus's new arrival arrives. Yarona was happy for two hours on my lap with her own paints and paper. My geographical fix, realized.
On writing. I remember Dad, towards the end of his career, compared it to torture. I've succeeded avoided putting word to page for several seasons now as I entertain the notion this avoidance has to do with waiting for the other shoe to drop. Its a bizarre feeling, one of suspended animation. As if somehow, by not writing, I'm outside the wave of events of the last few years.
The only constant is that life changes. Some go on to say writing can be a vehicle for getting unstuck so change can gain momentum.
So, last spring a starving wolf took out Mason, our devoted and ancient canine of sixteen years. His absence made room for a string of hungry black bears to turn the barn into a fast food joint. All of the four-legged barn crits dispersed to became part of the landscape, some in the bellies of others.
I miss them and its been sobering to recognize how much of my identity had become the crazy granny goat herd of 39 mile. I'm now left to explore the fine lines between domestic and feral, the fence rows where wild things thrive and little kids discover color.
In the last hour we lost those two degrees. Heavy white is now sticking to the forest across the river. Those geese gave up finding an opening through the pass. As they circle above I'm reminded I need to get another chunk on the fire and to be sure and have white sugar on hand for the feeders. Time to pull on both shoes.
A geographical fix is in order. I heard Christy Tengs of the Bamboo Room talking about getting out of Haines for a mini-vacation. She planned to have a weekend in Skagway, 16 water miles away and I got excited.
Instead of Skagway, I drove forty miles to town and another eight out the peninsula to cozy up with Yarona Blue, my two year old grand-daughter. She and her mom and dad just finished crafting their fine little house on the bluff where I found them toasty and dry, watching the snow come down. They were busy shaping miniature wooden airplanes, painted in vibrant primary colors, carefully detailed. The planes will hang in a mobile when Sarah and Chorus's new arrival arrives. Yarona was happy for two hours on my lap with her own paints and paper. My geographical fix, realized.
On writing. I remember Dad, towards the end of his career, compared it to torture. I've succeeded avoided putting word to page for several seasons now as I entertain the notion this avoidance has to do with waiting for the other shoe to drop. Its a bizarre feeling, one of suspended animation. As if somehow, by not writing, I'm outside the wave of events of the last few years.
The only constant is that life changes. Some go on to say writing can be a vehicle for getting unstuck so change can gain momentum.
So, last spring a starving wolf took out Mason, our devoted and ancient canine of sixteen years. His absence made room for a string of hungry black bears to turn the barn into a fast food joint. All of the four-legged barn crits dispersed to became part of the landscape, some in the bellies of others.
I miss them and its been sobering to recognize how much of my identity had become the crazy granny goat herd of 39 mile. I'm now left to explore the fine lines between domestic and feral, the fence rows where wild things thrive and little kids discover color.
In the last hour we lost those two degrees. Heavy white is now sticking to the forest across the river. Those geese gave up finding an opening through the pass. As they circle above I'm reminded I need to get another chunk on the fire and to be sure and have white sugar on hand for the feeders. Time to pull on both shoes.
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