Poseidon’s Handmaiden

I want to tell you something about Greece. I’m here for two weeks, and this place has made an impression, taken hold. I will start with right now, this moment I’m in.

I’m sitting outside in a bamboo chair on a white linen cushion, my feet rest on the cool stone slab flooring of my white adobe style home. Bamboo shoots create a thatched roof overhead, dappled sunlight filters through. It’s 1:00 p.m., seven hours ahead of home time, which means it’s hot, too hot to be out walking around on the scorching sand that forms the dusty road that leads to the beach, only five minutes away on foot. I’m listening to “Summer” (The Carters), the happy cries of nearby children float in on the persistent breeze that blows through the open patio. My view is of Agios Prokopios, Naxos’ most famous beach, arguably one of the best beaches in the world. My hair is damp and dry salty strands fall in my field of vision as I type. A yacht and a handful of sailboats hover on the horizon. Mostly what I see is blue blue sea. Fifty shades. A scattering of umbrellas along a golden stretch of sand that reaches 1.5 km. Directly in front of me, bunches of green grapes with a blush of red attached to a sprawling vine rest on the seriated roof of my neighbour below. Two bright blue towels, hung with care on the chair behind me, flutter like beating hearts. Our door, painted a pale blue the exact colour of the sky, hangs open. If I were to invite you in, we could admire the marble countertops in the kitchen and bathroom commonly found in Greece, and feast on the rich colour of the bougainvillea bush outside my bedroom window or gaze longingly at the sea. I could explain how long it took me to understand that nothing but human waste goes in the toilet—no, not even toilet paper.

Come back outside with me for a moment, back to the Aegean Sea and the pale blue sky. Not 20 minutes ago, I had the best swim of my life. Ariel and I walked the length of the beach, about 25 minutes, to eat at a creperie in town, and then Ariel, who didn’t feel like swimming, took on the role of porter for our things while I turned in the direction of the sea.

Coarse sand balances my weight; the first step at shore’s edge, toes submerged, sends a chill up my spine, which is a relief because I’m sweating from the blazing sun. I pause momentarily, then a few more steps and I’m in up to my chest. I can see down to my toes. As I propel myself forward, an open expanse of crystal-clear water unfolds. If you are a person who loves swimming, as I am, then I don’t have to tell you there is no greater joy than the ‘good part’ of a body of water, the place best for swimming without obstacle. Here, the good part doesn’t end. No debris—seaweed or rocks or visible wildlife or otherwise. The water cool, but not cold—refreshing. No waves, save for the occasional gradual swell, a joyful rising, not unlike the feeling inside my body as I make my way down the coastline, waving to my daughter on shore who cools her legs in the gentle breaking surf. I swim and swim and swim, passing the occasional Greek or Italian, and swim some more for over a kilometer. A more gorgeous swim, I cannot imagine. The person who designed infinity pools has visited a Greek beach, perhaps this one, I am sure of it.

My eyes have grown accustomed to the salty water, and I submerge completely and stroke my arms one, two, there, four, five, six. Resurface for breath. Ariel beckons me back to shore. I depart, having completed my journey along the wide horseshoe. The sea’s fingerprints trace down the length of my body, leaving its salty residual, my hair crispy and clumped and wild. I walk to the outdoor shower to rinse off, slip on my flip flops, then clop the five minutes home.

I am Poseidon’s handmaiden now, lured into the sea’s cradle like men drawn by the sirens’ whispers. Poseidon, mighty Olympian who presides over the sea, I aim to serve. Even apart, the wind, its saline brine, carries reminders of the sea.

Likely I will make it back to Canada—likely. But if I do not, blame the gods.

Magic Tokens

I‘m writing this in Toronto, sitting at a picnic table bench, on a patio behind a modern café. Two magic tokens are tucked somewhere in my bag. Last night, I stood on a stage in front of a room full of people and read from my essay “Navel-Gazing, a Revolution & a Love Story: The Importance of the Self and Stories of the Marginalized” recently published in the Humber Literary Review where I argue for the importance of personal narratives. I point out that the dismissal of those narratives by the literary community, with insults such as “navel-gazer!”, is just another way of silencing marginalized groups. In the piece, I weave in the narrative of witnessing a female friend fall in love with another woman, and I mistakenly insert myself into their narrative. This is perhaps my way of saying just because you don’t identify or see yourself in a story doesn’t mean the story isn’t of value. Quite the opposite. The morning of the reading, I was paddling the 5 km perimeter of my cottage lake, my writing friend a distant paddle board dot. We spent two glorious days together writing, and during that time my friend received some difficult news.

The cottage lake was still. The air held its breath. And paddling in my kayak, I could see the rows upon rows of trees layering the hills, and I could see a specific cluster of towering white pines reflected in the water in front of me. That reflection, I thought, it’s real. The reflection in my computer screen less so. Real in the sense of nature; nature that is true and good and right and calming. No artifice. No tricks. Yet, infinitely more magical. I could see the benefit our surroundings were having on my friend. I could see that being together, when receiving difficult news, is better than being apart.

I believe in the magic of the natural world, but I also believe in other forms of magic, too. I believe in magical thinking. I believe in the magic of each other.

A long-time friend of mine showed up to my reading, along with her three kids—her youngest being three. When I posted the event and invited the world to attend, it somehow didn’t occur to me that I’d be reading in a bar. Bars generally being unwelcoming places for small children of which my friend has three. When she asked me if she could bring them beforehand I didn’t hesitate, “Looking forward to seeing you!” I texted back, oblivious. The alternative being that she didn’t come. My own kids wouldn’t be there. The bartender is thankfully gracious and inviting, the literary crowd friendly, the kids well-behaved, my friend a trooper.

Right before my reading, her youngest, hair combed and pulled into several adorable buns, gives me a thumbs up and an eye wink. “Is this the show?” she asks me. “Yes,” I tell her with a smile as the land acknowledgement is read. “She’s going to be so disappointed,” I whisper laugh with my friend.

But as it turns out, my friend will text me the next day that they had a great time and “even the kiddos enjoyed themselves.” As it turns out, you can will an experience to bring you joy, even when it risks not being so, just by being together. As it turns out, there can be magic in a room, on the stage, and I’m talking about the magic of other people and their willingness to love you.

I read alongside a Giller Prize-nominated writer and spent a long time later talking to another writer whose short story collection was nominated for the Danuda Gleed Award. Both prestigious literary prizes in Canada. Maybe their sparkle will rub off on me? Does literary magic work that way? I hope so. Later, on my Uber ride home back to my friend’s where I will stay the night, I tell the driver all about the evening. I will then recall that I talk quite a bit, and that my writing friend and I had laughed about this at the cottage on our drive home. The driver will encourage me, “It’s okay, writers should talk a lot.” And that, in itself, will be a sort of magic. “Yes,” I agree, “writers need to have an opinion, something to say.” I recognize the difference between talking too much and having something to say.

And perhaps the thing I have to say is that when I’m done writing this post, I will be heading to the hospital with my daughter—again. This time, planned. This time, welcome. As much as a hospital trip can ever be. Dental surgery overdue. Dental surgery that we hope will bring her and us much needed relief. And there is a magic in the doctors who are magicians of life and there is a magic in relieving my daughter’s pain, which is real, as real as my own that transpires on her behalf. Because she is a part of me.

Before the reading, at my writer friend’s gorgeously renovated high park home, she will descend the staircase in a flurry and hold two tokens up in front of me. “These are for you,” she says. I am awestruck by the gift of these good luck talismans whose dulled shine have passed many hands. How thoughtful. I look to her, grateful. “For my reading?” I say in earnest, “for good luck?”

“No,” she says, “for the subway!”

My magic tokens, I will call them, clutching them both in my hand. Talismans of good luck. And when we arrive at the subway gates, on the way to my reading, the tokens are no longer accepted and the security guard magically opens the gates and lets me pass for free with a wave of his hand.

The night is a success; the reading goes off without a hitch. The children are mesmerized. The crowd a delight.

Simply by believing they would, the magic tokens hold their promise

Cottage Dispatches: On Making the Dock Whole

We’ve only owned a cottage since Covid, and after replacing the original sinking dock with a brand spanking new one, we’ve had to figure out how to manage the moving parts. The first winter, we were dismayed to find a part of our dock frozen close to the shore—not where we left it. The dock comes in three pieces: the weighted ‘island’ floating dock, which is supposed to stay in place and freeze into the ice; the ramp (middle section), which gets removed for the winter; and the stationary platform permanently connected to shore.

Last spring, we simply arrived at the cottage and voila, the island was rescued and the ramp was magically set back up thanks to the help of a rescue crew who retrieved the wayward floating dock, and put the whole thing back together for us. A hired rescue crew. I naively thought the rescue was part of the initial package we paid for because of how casually the owner responded when I phoned to tell him what had happened. “No problem,” he said, “we’ll come fix that for you.” Whatever demented part of my brain believed that a company of men would drive an hour to rescue a dock, install it, and drive an hour back is now forever cured by the hundreds of dollars we paid, rightfully so, in labour. And so this year is the first time we are on our own for dock reinstallation.

The chasm between the floating dock island weighed down by 1,000 pounds that freezes into the ice through the winter and the stationary permanent platform seems woefully far, standing back at the shore. Dan and I scratch our heads. Our job is to install the ramp, which consists of a metal base with a massive 250-pound floating device that sits in place with the careful insertion of four sturdy pins. Once the metal ramp is in place, we have to lay down four sections of wooden planks on top to complete the installation. Which end to attach first? How to not crush one’s finger or fling oneself off the edge of the dock into the frigid rocky depths? How to avoid slamming hundreds of pounds of expensive equipment and damaging said equipment essential to cottage life? How to avoid going into the lake?

Well, as it turns out: brainstorming, trial and error, problem solving, meticulous planning and generosity of spirit.

One of us would have to go in the May water. That person would be Dan.

After debating dropping the 250-pound platoon attached to the metal frame of the ramp off the edge of the stationary platform, we rescinded. The idea seemed both foolish and dangerous. We would have no way to control the beast from smashing off the platform and huge boulder below. Instead, Dan’s idea, we ferried the ramp out from shore, and this worked quite well. Point, Dan and Adelle.

Dan has a better sense of how things work than I do, so I listened as he problem solved. Sometimes his lengthy pondering can rub up against my let’s just do it! attitude, but I see the benefit of carefully thinking things through here.

The wind seems to be picking up, and while we do ferry the heavy ramp out with success, our attempts to line up the unruly ramp to install the two metal pins on each side is another story. The oversized pins serve as the dock’s hinges. We go along with Dan’s proposed solution first. Attach the two pins closest to us, shore side, then attempt to manoeuvre the other two in. But the dock won’t quite move that way. No matter how much we pull and prod, we can only get three out of four mental pins in place.

The floating dock is immobilized by four 250-pound weights. Each of those weights is attached with heavy rope to an anchor accessible by unscrewing its respective wood panel. We hate messing with the ropes. That’s how we lost our floating dock the first summer, the ropes came untied in the waves and loosened all the way. This past winter, we added a heavy metal chain from floating dock to land for extra security.

Three out of four pins in place. What to do? What to do? The partially installed ramp is getting hammered with waves, the wind is matting my hair, the black flies making their presence known. We are now two hours into problem solving Dan’s way. We’ve tried installing the pins in from both sides first—same problem. “We have to loosen the ropes,” I say, “The water level’s raised; it’s got to be that.”

Dan isn’t quite sure, but it’s my turn to problem solve. He wades through the cold water, past his hips, with a drill in hand, and carefully removes the wood panel to access the rope to one of the weights. He loosens the rope all the way. There seems to be some give. He opens up another panel. Loosens the second rope. Now the dock is malleable and receptive to our manoeuvring, and Dan easily slides the posts into place to install the pins. Success!

“Hey! I was right!” I cannot resist gloating somewhat over having figured it out.

“You were. You were right, good job.”

From there, the four sections of boards fit on top, no problem. Dan didn’t even need me for that.

And while I wasn’t the one who went in the water, and I did not use the power tools, and I did not do the bulk of the lifting, and I definitely would not say I could have done the job on my own—it was my solution that achieved the desired result. Dan couldn’t have done it on his own, either. He would have figured it out eventually, but the job was done faster with two heads instead of one. So much of our life together is like this. One person taking the lead, and then the other stepping up to fill in the gaps. To make the dock whole.

Beers and cheers at the end of our finished dock? Definitely. We christened our work as the sun sank lower in the sky and kneeled down on the shadowed hillside.

Next up, time to fix the water line…

Star Sleep

I woke up outside shy of 4:00 a.m., cold and in the dark, to a chorus of wolves yipping, barking and howling far off in the distance.

I decided to rekindle the fire I lit before going to sleep. I pushed back my warm covers to a barrage of cool air hitting my face. I poked at the embers, seasoned their glow with leaves and twigs, then threw on three more logs and breathed life back into the fire that sparked, snarled and snapped back at me. Dan slid off his side of our air mattress to take a leak. Climbing back into bed, I pulled our flannel comforter over my head, peaking out enough to allow a breath of cold air in, and a small window out to see the flames, which roared sideways in my direction like a woman’s fiery orange hair come alive. An owl in the trees nearby who whooed and the loon’s wails echoed, haunting the lake until dawn. When I awoke a few hours later, the birds were chirping, a few Blue Jays squawking, but it was the sound of the busy bees buzzing to and fro, choosing their flower, buzzing off into the trees surrounding me, that filled my ears. I spotted their hive high up in a birch tree.

We were at our cottage, and the night before was calm and serene. I raked out our fire pit to create a flat surface, then laid two logs down parallel, filling the space between them with leaves, twigs and bark, arranging my kindling down across the two logs like a bridge. The fire caught beautifully. Dan fished off the dock with Penelope and Elyse, and I swam with Ariel and a neighbour as the sun sunk into the shadowed hills. By the time the swimming was done and the stars were out, one log laid nestled against the other like a burning work of art. We sat with the girls, working on a crossword together by the fire, roasting oversized maple marshmallows. Finally, bedtime for the kids, but I wasn’t ready to leave the perfect fire and still night, not yet. Dan ushered the girls into their beds, and I sent him a text.

Dan. I’m super excited. Tonight’s the night.

I looked up from the fire to find him standing at the window of our screened-in porch above me.

“I know what you want to do,” he called down, and I saw him roll his eyes, a slight shake of his head with a smile across his lips. Dan has an uncanny ability to read my mind. He knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do that night.

In the few days before, I had one of my BIG Ideas. The last time I had a big idea, we ended up selling our home and traveling around the world as a family. This new big idea revolved around a potential future book project for which I was compiling a list of experiences that intrigued me. Not a bucket list—exactly—more of a loving living life list. One of the experiences was to sleep under the stars.

Once I get an idea in my head, I have a strong desire to carry it out. Dan barely resisted the idea of sleeping outside the cottage all-night, though his initial text reply was: I don’t care to. With the temperature dropping to twelve degrees Celsius overnight, I would need his warmth and feel safer tucked into his side. I was relieved it wasn’t that much work to convince him. The last thing Penelope said to me before falling asleep was, “Don’t get eaten by a bear.”

With our plans for the night in place, we set to work.

“You get the tarp, I’ll blow up the air mattress,” Dan said. We set the air mattress on top of the tarp, and Dan emerged from the cottage with an armful of bedding. We layered up, I added a few more logs to the fire and the two of us laid side by side looking up through a window of trees at a bowl of stars. “Did you see that?” I asked him. We both had. The distinct glow of a shooting star pulsed and then faded across the sky, an astral firework. We kissed goodnight and rolled into each other for warmth, me in my hoodie, socks and flannel PJ bottoms, him in shorts and a long-sleeved tee. Dan’s light snores cast out into the night, while I laid on my side, gazing serenely at the fire until nodding off into an easy sleep.

So how did the night go? Dan slept somewhat fitfully, waking around two, three, and four a.m., while I fell asleep somewhere close to midnight and got up closer to four to mess with the fire, which, I learned, does not provide much warmth unless you nestle up fire-hazard close. While my body didn’t benefit from the fire’s warmth, my face turned toward it did, and I basked in its warm glow.

At one point, at some ungodly hour, the distinct sound of a twig snapped nearby—quite close to us. Dan tensed beside me, waking us both up. I slid down further underneath the comforter while Dan lifted his head. I thought of the mink that lives by the water’s edge in front of our cottage, and the large fisher, a bear-like creature with claws that our neighbour saw passing by the top of his driveway the other day; as well as the porcupines the Madawaska Valley is named after, skunks, racoons and of course, the bears, which I have only seen forty-five minutes away in Algonquin Park. No further sound. Within a few minutes, Dan’s breathing slowed again, and I fell back asleep to the rhythm of his easy snores and the comfort of the fire. The sound was likely a chipmunk scurrying in the rock pile above our heads where they live. In the night, every sound is amplified.

When the sun rose, I assumed I’d wake and slide right into the lake for an early morning dip, but it didn’t happen that way. The stars subsided, giving way to a cyan sky. Dan left the warmth of our nest to go fishing and I pulled the comforter back over my head until way, way after the sun came up. I sank further into daytime sleep. I wanted to hold onto the dream of the wolves howling in the night with my eyes closed a little bit longer, a little bit longer, listening to the bees and the birds, knowing it had all been real.

 

The Archway

Our covered front porch is accentuated by three brick archways. From the viewpoint of standing on the porch, or arcade, each archway is like looking through a window.

I found a new place to write. Sitting on a blue cushion in a wicker rocking chair on my covered front porch, my red dog at my feet. We’re overlooking the garden and perched where we are in the elbow of the street, we can see the comings and goings of our neighbours. Two squirrels squabble in the tree of my neighbour’s yard; Atlas’ ears perk up, but he doesn’t budge—not yet. We are suspended in this peaceful moment together. Even a six-month-old pup knows a good thing when he’s got it.

A van drives past, the squirrel hunting his nut at the curb lifts his frame, shifting the bulk of his weight back onto his haunches, and high tails it in the other direction. Good decision. The whirl of a helicopter cuts through the peaceful chirps of birds, disrupts the gentle breeze. With the hospital nearby, the helicopter signals emergency. Like a cat stepping onto piano keys, the whoosh of the helicopter compresses my heart, plucks each string; the helicopter a harbinger of tragedy, or rescue—or both. Rescue or tragedy or both. I recall the friend of a friend whose newborn needed new lungs to live. The mom waited for lungs for their newborn to arrive by helicopter. For that baby to live, another had to die. Perhaps a car accident, where the baby doesn’t make it, but the lungs remain intact. And that mom, just waiting, waiting, for the sound of the helicopter chopping at the air. Wondering how much longer her baby will survive without the lungs. Reconciling what it means for the lungs to arrive. Reader, they do arrive. As if such impossible longings could ever be reconciled.

A mama robin has built her nest into the vines on the side of our garage leading to our main entryway. I noticed her this morning after I shut the door and peaked behind me through the door’s glass window. The robin held a juicy worm between her beak, and something about the posture of her body, the way she stood erect, alert, puffed breast, on the sidewalk in front of our house, not far from the nest, said “mama”. And that’s how I noticed the nest. The worm disappeared, and soon she was carrying a mouthful of twigs and dry grass and up she flew, into her nest. Around she twirled making herself cozy on top of her eggs.

I haven’t seen her since—it’s worrisome.

Atlas has decided to explore. He momentarily gets himself locked behind the side gate, after I have to scurry across my driveway after him. But he complained almost instantly at the separation of the gate, so I grab him a hunk of wood to chew on, and now we’re back in our spots, me on the blue cushion of the rocking chair, him lazing on patio stones the pinkish-blue twinge of granite, gnawing on wood.

Two dwarf-sized daffodils in my garden are vibrating in the breeze. And the thought occurs to me how much the backs of flowers are like the backs of people, the backside of a flower. Our faces, flower-like, open or closed. I don’t finish that thought because Atlas catches sight of a silver cat, the bell on its collar tinkling, taunting. I warn him a few times—“Atlas!”—but once he sits up, ears perked, any hope of him paying attention to me is lost. He springs to four paws from his place beside me into a crouch position at the end of the porch, then quickly cuts across the grass and onto my neighbour’s driveway. He makes it to her fence, the cat safely on the other side. The silver feline easily slips away in the time it takes me to get my puppy’s attention, which isn’t too long. He comes back to me now, wagging his puppy hips and tail, like wasn’t that fun mom?

I tuck him inside the house, where he whines for me, confused. I wait a beat then attach him to his leash before heading back outside.

Shortly after, our elderly neighbour walks down the street, slowly, slowly. Atlas yanks my arm off trying to get to him. He loves this man.

I can’t keep up with the action through the archway; my pen unable to hold pace. The silver cat comes back, and slinks across the road just as Thirsty’s Lawn Maintenance parks in front of my neighbour’s house. One gas vehicle after another is unloaded and powered up. So much for a place to write in peace and quiet. The motors scream and Atlas throws me a sorrowful glance. But this is a window onto the season and these sights and sounds of summer I gladly accept.

And in this way, we bend from one season into the next, letting go of longings we cannot reconcile. We lean into new worlds coming alive before our eyes, and live as fully as we can, as observers or participants, inside the window, or out.

The Chimera

I’m back at the cottage. The chickadees are here – we call back and forth to one another – so is the rain. But I don’t mind the rain; I’m here to work. The brightly coloured ground is wallpapered with leaves. Inside, the whirl of a heater, a light sucking sound – or is it blowing? Last night, standing outside in the dark, complete silence. This is my definition of a retreat.

I do have a friend, a fury companion. I take him outside for his walk this morning and he refuses to budge from the doorframe. It’s raining, he communicates with his eyes. My pretty, prissy dog. Instead he suggests we play inside, nudging his rope toy into my leg, coyly letting his teeth graze my skin from time to time, just enough to goad me on. I am reminded of the fox from The Little Prince.

“You are pretty,” the prince tells the fox, “who are you?” The fox explains he is a fox and that if the little prince wishes to play with him, the little prince must first tame the fox. Louie is mine, I have tamed him. And now he is unique to me in all the world. But the fox’s words are almost a warning: once you tame me, I will be sad when you leave. The fields of wheat will remind me of your blond hair. We are responsible for that which we tame, and so it is between my vizsla and me. I am here to write, to work, to run a retreat, but I am also responsible for the things I have tamed. We can never completely leave the world behind, can we?

Later, we walk along the driveway and something inside Louie lets go, unclenches. He tears around, digging in the earth, then runs up a storm. Whatever it is that is wild inside of him has broken free. This is who he is, I think, this is instinct. I take him outside to be free, to be who he is. A wild animal. He runs at me full speed, his muscles uncoil as he jumps up at my chest, mouth open, gnawing at my arm.

“NO!” I am firm with him, grab his collar. It’s as though he’s forgotten himself, the dog we’ve tamed him to be. Oh, right. He sits politely, looks at me with those puppy eyes. “Okay,” I tell him, “go play.” Released, he’s off like a shot. Then a minute later attacks me again, playful but rough. Both my pet and a wild animal.

On another day, Louie and I are running together, and something miraculous happens. The moment is like a chimera, an illusion or fabrication of the mind, an unrealized dream, except it comes true.

Louie runs alongside me wearing a black fifteen-foot leash. If I see another dog or human coming, I can easily step on his long rope, or catch up to him and reign him in. I’m teaching him to come back to me when we see other people, but he isn’t perfect at it yet. Remember: taming, wild animal. He’s in training. The leash trails behind him, and bumps and shimmies across the ground like a snake. Louie and I are often close enough during our runs that I have to avoid stepping on his leash, which otherwise causes him to roll and tumble to the ground (sorry, boy). The leash’s movement makes it seem as though it is alive: it’s a trick of the mind and the eyes, and I constantly remind myself it is not so, the leash is an inanimate object being trailed along the ground. One minute I’m running along, the next minute the leash turns into a long black snake, slithering along in the shape of an ‘s’. The chimera becomes real.

I am running along and the end of the leash does turn into a real snake. I have to hop over the reptile to avoid stepping on its long body. The snake was likely sunning itself on the dirt path, when down comes my wild animal, clopping along, barreling full speed along the trail, disturbing the snake from its rest. The snake scurried off in my direction, appearing to materialize out of the end of the black leash the same colour as its body.

“Oh!” was all I could manage as I hopped over the snake the length of my arm.

This has to mean something, I tell myself, jogging along. Leashes don’t just change into snakes for no reason. Maybe it’s what is real isn’t as it seems? Maybe it’s about creating something out of nothing? Maybe it’s about life materializing? Maybe it’s about being at the right place at the right time to witness a miracle, or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it? Maybe the snake carries no meaning at all, the three of us just passersby in the grand scheme of the universe? But I think I know better than that. Maybe it’s about watching where I step, about learning to see what’s in front of me? Literally, what I am almost stepping on. Maybe the snake was a warning, a sign to turn and run, or a gift of the inanimate being made real? Of my worst fear, that of the leash or rope, actually being a real snake? Isn’t that one of those things many of us fear when we’re outdoors. That that stick over there is a snake that might curl around our arm and bite us? It’s funny how the snakes we encounter in Canada really have no interest in doing that, but my dog, the one I’ve tamed, he’s game.

The gift of meaning was in seeing the leash come to life, in beholding the real live snake, and then jumping over it. I did not scream; I did not feel in the least bit inclined to. I’m no longer afraid of snakes, because I’ve taken the time to get to know them a bit better. When we know something, we fear it less. And of course, as I jogged along further, I came to see the snake as representative of my little girl with Down syndrome. The end of the leash could never become real, just like how as a twenty-eight year old woman, I could never give birth to a baby with Down syndrome. That would be my worst fear. Then she was here, and I held her in my arms and saw that fear was only a fear of the unknown. That everything is knowable, and that it is fear that drives us apart. And that my little girl would become unique to me in all the world. She would tame me. It’s not that I wasn’t surprised, that I didn’t jump or that I would act perfectly, as her mother, all the time, but what once seemed scary, no longer held its power over me. I would see the world anew, and I would jog along just fine.

The Real Thing

September’s pace hits you in the belly, takes the breath right out of you. Perhaps the greatest indicator are the sounds coming in through my bedroom window from outside at six in the morning. The squealing breaks of large trucks, engines turning over, wheels pressed against pavement. These are not weekend sounds, rumpled sheets, the hot sizzle of oil in the frying pan or the smell of bacon and maple syrup. Another car drives by this morning. Even the sky is screaming with jet engines. Busy, busy, busy. All going somewhere.

Sometimes I want to turn it all off, make the noise go away. I check my phone and my day begins listening to a video of a friend crying. On a phone call with a friend last night, discussing writing, she reminds me that our brains don’t know the difference between real trauma and trauma we relive through our writing, in terms of the toll trauma takes on our bodies, our wellbeing. We feel trauma at a visceral level when we remember it and we actually reexperience it. Does my brain understand the difference between my friend recording a video of herself crying last night and that my friend is likely sleeping soundly when I watch the video today? Probably not. I feel sad when I watch the video because I see her pain, no longer real, but that once was so and were she to be reminded about it, she might be sad all over again too. But maybe not. Perhaps that was a particularly sensitive moment and she’s moved on. Without being there in person myself, I’ll never know the full context.

Online, even when we aren’t there, we are there. Through video and Zoom, we are everywhere now. I’m not sure if my brain knows the difference: that I am not actually going everywhere, it just feels that way. My body, my mind, have travelled into the city, across the country from one side to the other all in one day, and it’s tiring. We feel exhausted, fatigued. Burnt out.

I do have a remedy for this. My dog is my lifeline. I HAVE to walk him/run him/play with him. He gets me outside. Outside this time of year is the sound of crickets chirping, the hot sun beating on my bare arms, fading colour and fresh air with a whiff of decay. In town, it’s the cries of children in the school yard and the barks of dogs greeting passersby. Out of town, it’s trees and dappled light, stretching shadows, dusty footsteps along a well-trodden path.

My dog, my children, they are in the present moment. They are my real life. There is no such thing as past traumas, only the right-here-right-now of the moment. I am filling in a form for the school before I go back to the email I was in the middle of typing before I had to pick the kids up, before I phone that person back, before I join my next Zoom call, before, before…

“Mommy,” says Penelope, my youngest, “come play hockey with me in the backyard.”

“Okay.” I drop the pen and the form. This time they can wait, my four-year-old can’t. Or rather, she can, but real-life beckons.

While Zoom may take me to far-off places, my children keep me right where I am, right where I am meant to be.

Outside we go and the sun is blazing, the grass needs to be cut. Penelope hacks away at a tennis ball with her plastic stick. I teach her to always keep two hands on your stick, see, like this? the way my dad taught me. She hacks at the ground. Lower, quick, like this – see? She pauses to look at me, her eyes hold me and she smiles, delighted to have her mom all to herself. In the flesh. This connection between us cannot be replicated on any screen, or rather, it can, a scene in a movie perhaps, the mother dropping what she’s doing to make time for her youngest, a heartening scene that evokes emotion. The listener feels something, real emotion, love even, that approximates the real thing. But do not be fooled. My phone doesn’t love me. My computer screen does not love me. Exchanged in that glance was authentic real-life, an in-person exchange that cannot be replicated again. The exchanges of real-life are the fabric of the universe, not what happens on a screen. I’m trying to remember that. To tell my body to slow down, step away, get outside and into the folds of the universe. We pass the tennis ball back and forth between us; she hits it really far and we cheer. Our happy cries ring out and there is no replacing this real thing.

 

The Place We Are In

I’m back at the cottage for a few days. I watched the water current move all summer long almost exclusively to the right, or eastwardly, but now I detect an unmistakeable shift to the left. Fall is here. Something about the current, the way the water is moving, is reminding me of this global pandemic we are in. The water moves swiftly, as temperatures drop lower and lower, until the water temperature becomes untenable, deathly. For the time being, the water is hovering around 60 degrees, and most people wouldn’t go in. I did. With a wetsuit on. But not everybody has a wetsuit, protection. Many people can’t even swim. For many, the simple act of being asked to float would lead to drowning. Right now, people are being asked to float and people are drowning.

I listened to an audio book on the way up to the cottage, Alicia Elliott’s A Mind Spread Out on the Ground. What I’ve heard so far is fantastic, but there is one detail she got wrong. She likens depression to drowning, “but at least,” she says, “with drowning there are signs: arms flailing, noisy splashing, cries for help, etc.” I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the picture. While I appreciate the metaphor and the point is not lost on me, the notion of drowning being loud is incorrect. I was shocked to come across a pamphlet on drowning when I was researching water safety (as mothers are wont to do) when we bought the cottage. Drowning is known, by those who know – by lifeguards and the aqua-savvy – as a silent killer. Most people who drown never make a sound. They slip away, unnoticed. We are in a pandemic, there are people drowning, and they aren’t making a sound.

It’s fall and I’m in a three-season cottage and it’s cold so I’m trying to light a fire. Again, I have resources. I ball up paper and lay down kindling. Put a few bigger logs on top, one or two, not too many. I’ve been educated by those who know in the art of fire building. I asked my local neighbour who lives in the house he grew up in about wood stoves. After I’ve asked my many questions about indoor fire maintenance, he at one point grows quiet and still.

“Please,” he says, “let me know if you need help anytime.”

My question of, “so I leave the door open and then…?” left him feeling anxious.

“I don’t want you to burn down the cottage.”

Step one, pull the lever to open the flu (door at the top to let air out) all the way. Step two, get the fire going, use kindling and a fire starter as needed. Step three, once the fire’s going, close the door and close the flu three-quarters of the way by pushing in the lever, that will keep the fire from burning too hot, which could lead to a chimney fire. Step four, turn on the built-in fan in the back to disperse heat and temper the flame. Be careful what you burn. Always hard wood (maple, oak), not softwood (pine), which burns too hot and fast and can lead to said chimney fire.

Build your fire and watch the flames burn. Revel in the warmth, enjoy.

And I’m trying. I know all the steps, I’m doing the things, but the fire just won’t catch. Smoke pours out of the chimney, inexplicably flowing to the east, but nothing is catching. I’m flickering, flickering and now the flame’s out. I’m cold. Chilled to the bone. I add a layer of protection, but I’m not moving, not going anywhere and so my temperature drops like the lake outside.

And there’s something about being behind the glass and looking out at a lake I can’t touch that unnerves me – a fire I can’t hold. I want to go swimming in the lake everyday like I did before, but everything is different now. I’ve had to readjust my expectations, my way of being. I’m shifting direction from east to west. I’m going a different way now.

The fire, of course, is not for me to hold. But is it not just like me to want the things I can’t have? The very things that will burn me?

A career in writing is like this. Did I mention I’ve received a few rejections lately? I did not win the CBC Creative Nonfiction Contest, I did not place a particular story in the newspaper, I did not land that coveted agent. Burn, burn, burn. In truth, the agent hurt the most, although there I probably had the lowest odds. But here was the thing: this agent gets 10,000 pitches a year and mine was one of the 400 she asked to read further material. I was not one of the ten or so she chose to sign. And that hurt because the first hurdle felt SO monumental, to have made it so far, like getting our cases down so low, only to fail to complete the job. Those outside of the writing industry will say they’re sorry for my luck, and I thank you, really, I’m fine. Those inside of it will nod their heads in understanding and recognition, congratulate me on the rejections. I collect rejections because it means I am getting my work out there, and at some point, there come acceptances too. At some point, this will all be over. But arguably, we’ll be in a different place by then.

I will continue to swim in the lake as long as possible; hold my head and hands up, and warm them by the fire.

The lake by the shore is still now, motionless. As darkness descends, a flash of light and stone, a memory darts into my mind. One last reminder that I am not safe. Taking my dog out this morning, down a trail and beyond where I’d gone before, past the ‘no trespassing’ sign (I know, I know), into the beyond, in the dirt there lay an animal track. Bigger than my hand. My neighbour warned me of the potential for bears, but I just had to see for myself. And there it was, a sign as clear as day. I had been warned. These tracks were fresh. Except, this wasn’t likely to be a bear track, not based on the shape. The shape was more reminiscent of a wolf’s paw. A very large wolf. I followed the tracks, one, two, three, then stopped, came to my senses, and scrambled back through the brambles, back the way I came, thorns tearing at my pants. Turns out that was not the direction I wanted to be headed. I’m still figuring it out, which way to go.

The fire is lit now, burning steady. And I’m thankful for that because the temperature continues to drop with the sun. I’m warm and cozy inside, tucked away from wolves that hunt and the monsters, mostly men, I conjure in my mind. I am finding my way and this is the place I am in.

 

 

The Last Time

This is probably the truest thing I can share with you right now. It’s a poem I wrote this morning, reflecting on nature, but also, in a roundabout way, it’s about heading home, the changing seasons and the kids going back to school. Endings and new beginnings. I have such a strong desire to be close to nature and I don’t want to forget all the elements that have left me feeling so inspired this summer. Poems can convey, with brevity, emotions I may not capture in a thousand words of trying to explain the complexity here. Suffice it to say, time is up, in so many respects, and so please allow me to be brief.

The Last Time
When was the last time
you paused
to stare at your breath on a cool morning;
you tilted your head up
and let the sun
cover your face like a warm cloth;
you strolled through the woods
and appreciated each tree,
the curve of its trunk,
a slender pointed branch,
noted the toadstools tucked in
at its feet,
down to the dew drops hanging from pine needles
like runny noses?

When did you last observe the clouds
dance, multiply,
like the dust kicked up of a thousand horses or
drift slowly by, on an airless day
the glaciers of the sky

When was the last time
you let the cool waters of the lake lick at your toes
or took the time to kneel –
crouch right down –
to peer inside the hole of the chipmunk’s lair;
admire the beauty
of the undulating hills towering above
reflected in water below in perfect symmetry;
the cattails tinged yellow, their colour
fading, bend and bow
in the gentle breeze?

You stare breathless
Pause
(hopefully not) for the last time.

A Summer Affair

I’m listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The clash of classical instruments banging against the soundtrack of my mind creates a space for focus. The music draws something out of me. From where I’m sitting at my desk, the lake looks like a Monet painting. Not quite real. The colour is off. Ripples of slate, blue, grey and white. A cottony clouded sky.

The temperature has taken a turn in Barry’s Bay. In the coffee shop in town, five minutes away, the locals tell me it’s been a nice August compared to usual.

“A few years ago, the third weekend in August,” a woman tells me, “it snowed at my cousin’s wedding.”  Snow – that dirty word.  Who wants to think of such things mid-summer? Certainly not I.

But as I stood at the end of my dock earlier, there’s no mistaking nature’s reversal – yes, reversal – because that’s what this is. Not really a cycle, more of a reverting back. In June, when we arrived, the same temperature, 17 degrees Celsius, felt warm. The cold was being ushered out, the warmth ushered in. Now the heat is quietly making its exit. First July’s humidity dissipated, but the heat remained, warm and friendly. Now warm air is slipping away, I fear we’ve almost reached the encore of this show, and soon she will exit stage left to make way for winter’s frost. I can feel cool air filling the room, permeating, taking her place, chilling my fingers to a pale yellow, numbing, stripping me of summer’s caress.

Summer here is like a searing, passionate fling – it was never meant to last, it never could last. Too hot to hold.

“Blink and you miss it!” the local woman laughed.

Like an affair, summer here is like a best kept secret, a dance between lovers producing heat that fades with time. As quick as it arrived, it’s over. Only that first kiss lingers. I would do anything for that kiss.

I feel like a scorned lover. “But wait!” I cry, “we’re here until the END of August, can’t summer last until then?”

No, it can’t. No more than the relationship that’s fizzled out can be rekindled. Once the fire’s gone, the flame’s extinguished, that’s it. There is no going back to what was, you have to wait to find it again. The reversal of falling in love is falling out of love – the latter seems to happen much more quickly; the way I’ve blinked, and summer is leaving me.

Come August first, the air told fall’s story, a few weeks earlier than I would normally notice back home. What is beautiful about spending so much time outdoors and taking notice are the cues nature sends to make herself clear. She is not a shy lover. The seasonality of the bugs. First they’re here, now they’re mostly gone. Come August, cue the grasshoppers. Where were they all of July?  I’ve not a clue, but my friend the farmer tells me his chickens love to eat them. One hopped into our van, as we left the farm. The most alert and alive and humongous green cricket I’ve ever seen.  He rode shotgun over Dan’s shoulder all the way home. The next morning, when Dan got back in to drive Louie to a trail for a jog, the cricket was still there, like a devoted pet, waiting for another joy ride.

Then there are the dock spiders. No sooner had I announced to a neighbour that the dock spiders left us, then one faced me down. The dock spider, the size of my palm, one of the largest species in Canada, sat in the middle of the ladder I needed to climb up to get out of the water from my swim. I took the long way around.

In the spring, when we arrived, the dock spiders ran amuck, in and out of their crevasses, all over the dock, which had become their kingdom. We sat shyly on our towels, double checked chairs, regarded our shoes and shook out every garment and linen with vigour. As summer progressed, as it did so quickly – too quickly – the dock spiders seemed to cower away from our cries of joy and splashing cannonballs off the dock and visitors trampling down their lane. They left us be, golden sun creatures that we are, preferring the gallows below, I imagine. A reversal of habitat. But come August, if you’ve read the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web, you may have an inkling of what the water spider I came face-to-face with on the ladder of our dock intended. A large sac of eggs, soon-to-be spiderlings, now rests itself wedged between ladder and dock and momma spider sits astride it, proud. I am loathe to remove that sac and its spider, even if it means I need to swim the long way around, through the lily pads.

There was a time I would have crushed any and all spiders that crossed my path, such was my right, or so I thought. But through another form of reversal, I feel differently now, quite differently. When I find a spider or rogue moth or ant in the cottage, I mostly fold the creature into a napkin gently and take them back outside, where they would prefer to be anyway. I do what I can to avoid killing, I think it’s gentler on my soul this way.

As the cold floods in, won’t enough creatures die anyway? That spider astride her sac, won’t she perish short of seeing her newborns? Or is that just a story we tell little children?

Dock spiders belong to the family Pisauridae, closely related to wolf spiders. They do not bite. They lay their eggs in a silken egg sac, which can then be carried around by the female until it’s time for the young to hatch. She holds the egg sac in her fangs like a wad of cotton. The female dock spiders, pisaurids, build a silken, tent-like nursery for their spiderlings, and so they are known as ‘nursery-web’ spiders. This glorious tent is what I can see between my ladder and dock. When you start to think of the spider as building a nursery, she becomes harder to kill, does she not?

As they typically start nesting in the spring, this is likely our spider’s third egg sack, her third cycle of spiderlings. Each sac can yield 1,000 spiderlings. I check on those babies every day. Dan thought maybe a fish would come and eat them, nab the sac, but apparently, dock spiders are the ones who will eat minnows, sticking their two front legs in the water, awaiting the right water vibration. The perfect kill. A reversal of expectations.

“I feel like the end of a long day,” says Charlotte the spider, at the end of E.B White’s Charlotte’s Web. And can’t we all relate – especially lately?

A summer passed by too quickly; a pandemic that’s arrived and decided to stay. The leaving of school and the coming back. A reversal of fortunes.

I will embrace the cold the best I can. Pull out my tough jeans and hooded sweatshirts that I’ve had tucked away, tucked away but not forgotten. Instead of dressing down, I will layer up. I will throw a few logs on the fire, the trunks of trees that once grew strong.

I will hit play on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and write my way to the end, with images of Monet’s hayfields and summer days tucked into the back of my mind, for when the heat returns, I will be ready.

Until then, winter is coming.