Trying day; snow, snow, snow, and more snow! Up to our knees, still. sigh I haven’t seen so much snow since I was a kid living in Manitoba. I would walk to school in snowbanks two feet taller than myself. Last night I watched the wind hurling huge white flakes from the blackness onto my windows. My bitch Brinda is neck deep in it right now and eating it, shoving her snout in and chewing on it like a bone.

I’ve been stood up for an appointment with my medical herbalist. I received an excruciatingly sentimental Christmas card from my estranged sister. I can sense her reaching out, and my resistance, which I am working to overcome. She is lonely, I suspect. Our younger sister died in August, one of her few close friends. My anger has ebbed. She is all that remains of my immediate family and indeed, can drive me nuts but I do love her and miss her. So, I sent her a card and invited her to visit. If it happens or not, we shall see, but I know that I have tried, extended the olive branch. I decided as well, that our relationship doesn’t have to be perfect, or even healthy. I am going to have to be realistic, not expect so much, of her, of us. Considering all that we went through, I need to cut her a wide berth. She might need to realize that about me as well. I think we’re talking mercy here, which harkens the Mose Allison song/lyric, “Everybody’s cryin’ mercy but they don’t know the meaning of the word.” Used to cover it with my band the Zellots, I suppose because it rang true. Still does, so, we shall see. Continue Reading »

One reason I can’t abide the holidays is that my already shaky schedule gets tossed out the window as we navigate through social obligations and many people book off work. It was worse when I lived in the States as they start holidaying with the advent of Thanksgiving in November which makes it nearly impossible to take care of business for over a month, Nov. 22-Jan 2. I need to organize, so I can produce some writing. Sure enough, I have not accomplished much of it since I returned from my retreat on Salt Spring Island. I convinced myself I would carry back some of the momentum with me but it has all dissipated as I become bogged down on the domestic front. This in spite of a minimal Christmas celebration; in fact, it’s been more like an anti-Christmas. We all agreed to ignore putting up lights on the house, trimming a tree (which was a big relief). There were a few times when I missed the tanennbaum but for the most part, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass.  I was torn from the time Junior was a baby whether to celebrate Christmas or not. We are culturally Catholic, certainly not observant. It seemed hypocritical to celebrate Christmas though I soon stopped resisting the holiday’s powerful pull. As much as I detest organized religion I find religious-especially Catholic-iconography beautiful, captivating. I understand as well, the human need, and reliance upon, symbolism and ritual. The holidays do provide an opportunity to commune with family and friends so when Junior was little making him happy was our main motivation. He certainly had Santa figured out but we always tried to remind him of the significance of the holiday, who Christ was and how his teachings changed the world but now at fourteen, Junior is his own man and couldn’t give a rat’s ass either.

Josef and I have never been big on arbitrarily exchanging gifts on birthdays, etc. We prefer to spend time together as a way to show love for one other; go out for dinner or cook a lovely breakfast and when we’re really ahead of the game, as we will do in a week, fly off somewhere. We went to Haida Gwaii in September and will go to LA for a week in January. Christmas carols fill me with nostalgia though. As a girl, I loved singing them in choir. I do have mixed feelings. I could never understand the boozing and bingeing that went on at our house every Christmas. No matter how broke we had been in November, come Dec. 24, my parents would fill the house with rum and rye whiskey, candy, oranges and nuts, the biggest and loudest being my Uncle Reggie. Invariably the house would fill with yelling and strife as well.

On the other hand, perhaps we are afforded a little time to reflect before tackling another (new) year. 2008 has been interesting to say the least. Continue Reading »

Poor SamIAm. Our pup Sam had to have surgery on his leg, a damaged ligament. He’s in a lot of pain and managed to rip the bandage off even with a cone on his head. We have to keep him immobilized which is requiring constant vigilance. He is a terrier through and through.

I was cleaning out our despicable crawl space yesterday—crawl spaces are truly evil, forcing you to hunch over though I invariably bump my head anyway—and was startled to hear one of the boxes I grabbed break out into “I feel good, like I knew that I would !” by James Brown. I inspected the contents and found one of those musical greeting cards. Cute.

While on Salt Spring I spotted some typical islander humour. Along one stretch of Walker’s Hook road was a place called The Meadows. It looked like some sort of retreat centre; there were stables, a dining hall and cottages. A little further down the road was a dilapidated old house on some overgrown acreage and a crude, hand-painted sign boasting The Brambles. Islanders don’t like pretentiousness, do like to knock people off their high horses whenever possible.

Working on the tree book. I didn’t know the native aspen were called trembling aspen. So poetic. I’ve incorporated it into Whore In The Eddy, which has been selected for Continue Reading »

I am probably repeating myself but, well, welcome to my world. I still dream of Peter, wake up with him in my mind and I suppose that is not surprising, as troubling as his death is. I can’t abide speaking of him in the past tense and get an eerie feeling whenever I contemplate the void created by his absence, the void he has entered, the void we are all headed to. I go to the blog his sister Gretl has set up and look at the photographs of Peter, his work, and sigh and get sad and angry and cry again and wonder why am I doing this to myself?

I am trying to understand, to comprehend how this could happen and how could I have underestimated how much I loved him, how much he meant to me. I know that I am also mourning the part of me that is gone because he is gone, a critical, transitional phase of my life that he Continue Reading »

VELOCITY

Tremulous leaves quiver

but barmy birds eye

pistachios, fooled

by the flying V disciple’s

green skin peeping out

curling red pants of shell.

Crutch free at last

he climbs sunward,

higher than any other

for a glorious hour

of ecstasy, whooping hubris

before seeping sap loss,

Icarus molting,

plummeting boughs.

Helios thrill killing.

Winking navel

above the fork

must heft life up

out of the maelstrom.

CLAMOUR

Bark wattling,

coat warping, woofing.

Waning cockle stirrings,

withering crack,

lowering maven

trembles in a torrent of milk

mist, shudders at clonks,

crane calls,

dire sawing, rattling sheep

to slaughter

swarthy timbers falling.

Thunder in the chapel

beckons ample pressure,

staunchly wicked bush

germs, seething hands,

grizzled calculations shouted,

fleeting bounty,

illusory beneficence.

My host at the B&B is a sailor who claims to be “between boats.” Over breakfast we discussed one of the books I’m reading, And The Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi about the murder of a wealthy yachtsman and his wife on an uninhabited south seas island. That’s rare, he said, these days he said most piracy occurs around Malaysia and India and they usually prey on freighters.

I’m enjoying Salt Spring Island. A change of scene is always good. I have only been here once before, a long time ago, to visit my boyfriend Peter Draper’s father. Ganges is a much more bustling place than back then. In some ways, I feel more verve here than Bowen Island probably due to the larger population, 10,000 to our 3. One of the best things about Bowen is its proximity to Vancouver of course. I’m staying on 28 ocean view acres on the north end of Salt Spring with a view of Galliano Island across the Strait of Georgia, the North Shore Mountains visible beyond. The weather has been glorious! I was fully expecting to be socked in with fog and rained on mercilessly but the sun has been shining every day. It certainly helps buoy the spirits which is helping me to write, despite my fatigue. Feel like I’m fighting a cold. They get away from you-projects-and through this process, this retreat, I am able to retrieve these two-my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, and the verse I am writing for my book collaboration with Tina Schliessler.

You find yourself researching the oddest things sometimes. In the novel, I compare punk rock pogoing to the dancing in the Charlie Brown Christmas special but I couldn’t remember which character moved in that peculiar way. I thought it was Schroeder doing that dance when I remembered that he was the pianist. I was confused, wanted to verify the character. Was I going to have to go watch it? I think we have a dvd of it. If not, I would have to rent it. You Tube! Sure enough, there it was, in a clip. All I had to do was type in “dance” and “Peanuts” and I found it. I was disappointed to see that the kid in the orange shirt was dancing that dance and not one of the main characters like Linus or Pigpen. So what was I going to call him in the novel? Something I will have to figure out or simply cut. Fun, the kind of fun I have to make sure I don’t spend too much time on for I may be here for a week but I am only just getting my groove on. It’s happening though and I can’t escape the pressure, the anxiety, or the work. I am getting it done, having painted myself into a corner. On purpose.

Delighting in finding new words-new for me-in the process of writing today, words like frobnicate, which is Continue Reading »

Serendipity? This inn happens to be situated in a veritable grove of arbutus, their twisted figures the subject of many of Tina’s fantastic photographs and the art book we’re collaborating on. My first day of writing today and I produced this rough draft despite feeling tired and fluey. Oh, and this place does have a lovely view, out back, so this afternoon I sat on the bed and gazed out the window. I came inside and worked at the dining table-my desk-after it got dark in the afternoon.

FECUND

Cast out sea tree

hugs cliff heads, bluffs rocky soil,

growing burls of water in drought

and twisted, sideways, for the sake of light.

Sinewy sun hog snaps rival plants

or serpent slinks round their trunks.

Spontaneously trimming contortionist

kill slippers beetle branches,
.
dying as little as necessary.

Core as habitat, squirrel base.

Virgin slung fruit feeds robins, waxwing

and deer red orange berries, dense white

clusters of honey flowers offered to spring’s bees.

Always in leaf she sheds her soft suit

in the summer, blushing lost

in cinnamon bark.

Take a peek teat.

What is under the skin peels?

A smooth tongue. Virescent sheen. One knot-

a button, a bump, a blossom end.

I’ve arrived at the cottage, which is really not a cottage at all, more like the small wing of a house and I’m disappointed that there is no view. There was an ocean view on their website, lots of views. When am I going to learn? Well, it’s dark, I’m hoping the magnificent sea view will materialize with the morning light. I was counting on it for inspiration!

Sterile. Too much white in here, feels like a clinic. Our house has colour on the walls, thank Christ. I’m cramped, hemmed in, and discombobulated, not to mention tired after missing the Crofton ferry to Salt Spring Island. There were no signs on the Island highway for Crofton or the ferry to Vesuvius Bay and so I missed the sailing by about three minutes. Then I was driving in the fog and dark trying to find the place. It’s hard to tell driveways from roads and with no idea of distances, very confusing. I had to pull over and call the innkeeper, found out I had indeed gone too far, had to turn around. That’s it. I’m asking Santa for a GPS for Christmas! This is just dumb. In any case, after a nap and a cup of tea, I am starting to ease into the solitude, anxiety abating. In fact, it’s beginning to feel quite heavenly. I was vaguely lonely earlier, restless. Ah, quiet. Wow. No barking and howling, no video games booming, no doors slamming.

Why do the drinking glasses have the mason’s symbol on them?

Earlier today, around noon:

I saw a truck on the Bowen ferry bumper sticker: Slow Down! This ain’t the mainland.

I’m free! On the Queen of Cowichan, on my way to Salt Spring Island and my week-long writing retreat, watching three Cat in the Hat-shaped clouds recede as we chug along to Nanaimo, fog horn blasting. Continue Reading »