After days and days of a heat wave that broke records at every hour, our city is now closed in by an oppressive soggy stench.
Yech!
Today there is the beginning of coolness though and my mind is recuperating from its goo state of the previous days. Summer is over half gone and far too little of it has been enjoyed in the manner of the typical pleasantly moderate Vancouver summer.
Throughout the worst of it I lay surrounded by three fans blowing over bowls of ice-water for hours, unable to even watch a movie, my mind was so non-functioning. It was like being really sick with a high fever but unable to disappear into sleep - the hours dragged and the heat lingered heavy & relentless even through the evenings and pre-dawn hours. I received countless e-mails with the subject line, "Heat!" Everyone had so much more than they could bare. The province is still a tinder box and Lillooet, an interior town, is at this moment the subject of a death watch.
Rains are forecast in a day or so. Never thought I'd be praying for rain in the Pacific Northwest but that's what will clear the air and get rid of the stink and hopefully there will be enough to quench the 700+ fires burning in B.C with an incredible 80% of the province reporting an extreme/high risk of fire. I get lost worrying about how all the little animals can escape the flames.
But the stink - have to keep the windows open for air but I'm screening my windows with ever-lit smoke from incense to keep that stink away.
There have also been sightings of some (potentially) Stinky Creatures - but I love them! The Skunk. Spotted the first one Friday morning waddling across the street - the double white stripe down its back looking kinda snaky from my apartment window way above. Later, after dark, R. and I were shooting the little street gardens in the West End and we spotted another three, tinier skunks. A group of young men in the park were also enchanted and one fellow said that in an odd coincidence the night before he saw a nature show on TV about skunks that said they can spray up to 6 meters (wow, that's a lot cause I'd only been standing back about 2 meters at times). He also said that they give you plenty of warning - kinda rooting around and raising their tails - before spraying. Well, I'd seen that tail go up a few times earlier that night. We were grateful for this information and it will be heeded - 6 meters back. I love the notion of urban wildlife thriving. I love skunks a lot. R. and I both searched our memory banks and agreed that we'd both heard that tomato juice gets rid of skunk smell - good info re-affirmed, just in case.
Years ago, when de-scented skunks were still available in the province - they licensed 100 per year back then, I believe, I met a funny little fellow replete with coke bottle eyeglasses and carrying an all-white tiny animal in his arms. I called out "that's a skunk." He came running after me cause no one ever guessed what he was carrying - an albino skunk. He'd named it Silver Shadow and let me hold him. I was longing for a skunk as a child - we had all those "other animals". Well, the skunk is an amazing pet. You hold it in your arms and it hugs you. Big cuddly squeezes around the neck. What's not to love? Little mush pots.
So, it's been a long, long time since I wrote here in this blog. The financial collapse that felled me last fall seems to have at the very least reached a momentary plateau and I am returning to the action plan pre-meltdown, pre-downturn of my Dad's health and his hospitalization. I have long ago abandoned the plans to go to Legal Secretary School - what a demented notion that was but perhaps a necessary mental scheme to get me believing I could find employment in a worst-case scenario after the crash. As soon as it looked like I could retrieve enough bucks to live another year, I dropped out of the course - no regrets - no regrets at all. I am re-focusing on photography and organizing my portfolios and websites and shooting more and more regularly. Everything geared to working w. Russ & Wendy Kwan, a year-long program and what I am considering to be "Photographic Finishing School".
Since my last post in November 2008 many, many things have happened but I've taken life pretty slow over-all, certainly not seeking out any events through the winter. I lived in a happy cocoon - away from the world and its fucked axis of fiscal, environmental and political disaster. Guess I got my groove back in May. Still pretty relaxed though - sallying forth comfortably - it is clear that all plans will be accomplished as long as I am organized and focused. That's an art that I am mastering at last.
Highlights of Accomplishment and Pleasure in the last year include:
The house in Victoria is finally totally and forever more clean and organized. Cause all that junk is gone, gone gone - never to be replaced. The house is no longer an embarrassment with all the government people and care workers and medical people coming in for Dad. This task that began in 1997 with my mother's passing, that was the worst - a house-full, garage-full, and cabin-full of bunches of junk to deal with. Phase two of shedding the crap came with the unloading of 3 truckloads of junk when moving Dad into my house and this last bit was a relatively small mountain of junk - intense in details of sorting small things and papers and my old books. My stuff is a great deal harder than my parent's stuff to actually let go of and chuck. But, it's done and the insidious creeping dread throughout the years of knowing all this had to be done and had to be done by me alone, the procrastinating, the frenzied actual doing bits - well, it is all done! FOREVER!!!
A big new arena for self expression opened up with a course in the Spring, and I've learnt how to do many things with various Mixed Media techniques, using paint and photo transfers and "whatever" to spontaneously create. My favourite piece is a seascape at night with a glowing pearl-coloured tissue paper moon, black sandpaper rocks on the shore, and flotsam & jetsam details of brass beads and pink rock salt decorating about the rocks. In the distance a black sail silhouette and moonshine on the waves. It's not wall-worthy but does provocatively hint at future possibilities of endless creativity employing various mixed media and combinations of techniques.
Summer officially kicked off with R. and I spending a lovely few days in Seattle during the Fremont Solstice Celebration. This little getaway was a smooth pleasure and I would eagerly travel with R. again anytime. We share an interest in photography, community, pagan-based celebrations and jewellery design and our activities there fit so well.
This was pretty weird and gave me much pause - In late June Lynda came down from Prince George and out of habit we went to White Rock. We reminisced almost the whole day, re-living our lives past - all the times in the previous 25 years that we'd hung out at White Rock Beach together. We saw ghosts of our younger selves everywhere along the beach, along the railroad tracks and along the strip of cafes below the hill. All those years and action-packed phases of our lives weirdly blending thanks to the common element of this one beach. As my family also went to this beach every summer when young those ghosts were there as well but not so disconcerting to see the ghosts of my childhood (a distinct phase one wants to grow out of) as seeing the ghosts of my (now long) adulthood all blending as if one single fleeting day. I noticed a sadness about my feelings surrounding this perception and really a strong desire for the antidote of new things and new places - Life seems far too short through the lens of one place, one vantage point. I suppose that is why I no longer have patience for redundant conversations. Quick changes, nimbleness and breadth of outlook and inquiry seem to be the hallmarks of this current era personally. The hibernation is definitely over and I am moving on.
Thoughts of Autumn and travel my mind always goes east to New York but a big trip before next classes with the Kwans is not possible this fall so, instead, I may take another jaunt down to Seattle again and further to Portland before the Autumn session starts. A familiar but still rejuvenating getaway - drivable in a day and a much, much cheaper holiday with the van my little home again. In January 2010 Vancouver will be unbearable with the Olympics and I must be gone - a bigger trip and far, far away - saving money for that - haven't a clue as to the destination right now but as it will be the depths of winter South seems a must.
The picture above shows our fair city in the emerald coolness of a winter-past.
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