Red, orange, yellow and green.

It's our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation statutory holiday today (it's a date, not a day here. It would be nice to make it the first Monday in October every year but it's going to be September 30th every year instead so happy Tuesday! Sleep in!). We went and got a box of Orange-sprinkle Donuts with proceeds going to charities as expected and are going to do some outdoor-related big chores, but only a few, and then clean and prep the fireplaces (gas and wood) and the woodstoves for fall and winter. I'm ready for it. I bought hot chocolate and drug out all the heavy blankets. All the quilts have been washed, line-dried and put away. The curtains have been washed and rehung. The crock pots are lined up at the front of the cupboard and the picnic stuff is in the back. I have put  my birkenstocks away upstairs in the walk-in closet and brought my clogs out for fall. 

So ready. 

I took my ass to Knit City last weekend and the tattoo show too. It was busy busy. I got some handspun yarn. I saw the coolest artwork. I'm knitting for everyone now. I'm full up with projects until the spring. I'm dusting off the skeletons to perch in various locations around the property and I'm enjoying the leaves beginning to turn. I'm doing a sauna and a cold swim every single morning now too and taking melatonin and magnesium at night and sometimes when I sleep I sleep so well it's like winning an award.

Real Estate in Vancouver, volume 45638227452346910.

Indulge me, as I love to play the advocate of the Devil (not the literal, in this case. Too close to home). 

I once and still have a storied reputation as someone who can be sent a real-estate listing and send back a list of why it's perfect and also a list of why it's not, and Vancouver and surrounding areas are rife with material for me to peruse. 

I invite you to visit The Sanctuary. 

Probable the fifteenth or eightieth house/church/restaurant or cottage lot called this. Let's be honest. If it ain't a Haven, it'll be a Sanctuary. 

Carly and Eric built it. I don't know who they are but this article told me a little. Here's a quarter-acre impossible builders lot for half a million dollars (a steal!). Let's blast a house into the granite (we all know officials in the Sea to Sky are famous for allowing construction that ends in landslide fatalities, just ask Lions Bay) and it can 'nestle'. Ten feet from the houses on either side. But it's okay, because it will be natury and coming from grimy, noisy Gastown that means an awful lot. 

It will be PERFECT for our future tiny babies. The natural light. The crunchy Unesco vibes. The steep cliffs. The unfenced pools and outdoor saltwater bathtubs. Steep interior staircases and art-installation/stangulation hazard light fixtures notwithstanding. The poison mushrooms in the steep, deep and bear-filled woods outside.

Eric likes to open the windows up all the way across to be extra-super-nature-y. Who is running after the small babies while he's doing this? Where are we corralling these kids? In the sharp-edged bathtubs? In the pizza oven on the backyard uh..steppe that could fit a human? 

Maybe up by the singular raised garden bed where they grow all their own food (LOL) and supplement with those foraged mushrooms from around the hood? Maybe they keep them working to scrub endlessly the unsealed (because TOXIC but GAS FIREPLACES) porcelain tiles on every floor. To keep dirt at bay. 

Um. What?

So that article was published this year, in March and here it is the middle of September and it's already for sale! Maybe it's the 12k in property taxes that sealed the deal. Maybe this is the single most unlogical family home ever built and they tried to make it work but holy hell, there's only so many times you can yank a poison mushroom out of a hungry child's hand or soothe their little forehead bruises from hitting the side of those bathtubs. And a cloth (cloth?? Which one??!) designer sofa with children involved? Come on. 

Also if you look reallllly closely under the coffee table in the one photo there is something underneath, under the rug. Probably the architect they murdered for giving their family so much hope only to discover they've been living in a death trap all along. Now it can be yours for around seven million, give or take if you want them to include the ten-thousand-dollar 'board table' (I would, it matches the nature!).

Not a single photograph of the storied 'Moonlit Oculus'.  If there's magic, for God's sake show it to me.

I think I'll make an appointment to go see it because all of the pictures are from the article and not from the listing agents which is either a corner cut or a red flag or both and I want to know which. Who wants to come with me? 

The Hunter/d.

I woke up at four in the morning, opened the curtains and the constellation of Orion was directly in front of me. I gasped out loud and Ben woke up so fast he may have gotten whiplash. 

 Slumber-bee. Come back. 

He couldn't see it from the bed but I couldn't take my eyes off it. It's never been so close. It's never been right there but what do I know? Sometimes I have slept through it. Maybe there are more stars I can touch. I make a note to drink coffee at nine tonight so I can stay up. So I don't miss a thing. 

Lochlan stirs and I put my finger to my lips. Ben nods and lies back down, probably asleep before his head hit the pillow. He leaves room for me but I probably won't be back. Not with this rock show going on in front of me. 

I head downstairs and straight out the back door to where the sky will be mirrored by the sea. It's calm enough for reflection of the sort I am looking for and that's what's important. The chime will wake up the house, however and so I will enjoy it while it lasts because if I know one thing it's that Bridget is not allowed outside without supervision ever. It's so loud too. Sometimes I don't want to give the barometer, sometimes I just want to talk to ghosts, or to be alone. Sometimes even if it's dark. 

There are too many risks here at home. The ghosts, mainly. The cliffs. The bears. The tortured inner monologue. The lack of personal responsibility. The drugs. 

The history of me. 

I may be the star in their skies but in reality I'm a little black cloud. There's nothing shining here, a tarnished crown of life interrupted or rather a life I sleptwalked through.

Neamhchiontach. 

But the voice doesn't match the word and I turn and it's Lochlan, standing in the doorway, lit from within and without, my whole universe in all of its red-headed glory. A fiery planet too big in the universe to be a simple star. 

Come back to bed. 

But Orion-

Now, Bridge. 

 

 

Am I Damaged? Yes.

After a sleepless night folded in the arms of the Devil (shhhh, Halloween is coming), I checked my phone around five-something, actually seeking the rate change from Bank of Canada (I'm a day early, and thought it was Wednesday) only to discover that Robert Redford has died. 

He was 89. A magnificently prolific life, a study in perfect direction (I discovered to my delight as a teenager that he was not only an incredible actor but turned out to be an Academy-award winning Director as well. On his first try, no less. Ordinary People ruined me in a way I can't describe. It's like it was a harbinger of a life I didn't know I was about to confront firsthand.), a huge hand up for the environment and for culture in general.

And he and Jake shared that ridiculously-handsome tousled blonde goodness. I compared them relentlessly, though Jacob was over thirty years younger, he matched Redford for some sort of uncanny comparison no one could get past, once they put their finger on what it was that made Jake look so familiar. 

I watched every movie Redford was in. I walked around quoting lines from Three Days of the Condor and Barefoot in the Park. I ate up every second of Brubaker (weirdly, my absolute favourite movie that he starred in) and Indecent Proposal which is pretty much what Caleb patterned his whole existence on and I fell for it because I was curious and because I have issues and because they broke me young and they broke me early. 

I didn't really love Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid but the boys did so there's that. It was fun and different. Ditto The Sting but that's okay too. All the President's Men is a masterpiece and so was The Last Castle. So many films and I've seen them all. Such a huge loss for the entertainment world and for my little world as well. It gets smaller all the time but I do know I'm in awe of someone who can leave a scar on history in such a way as Redford has managed to. That's phenomenal and the world is a little dimmer today for such a bright star that has gone out. 

***

Did I need to address being with Caleb? I don't think so. Sometimes I wander the halls in the dark. Hell, sometimes I end up PJ in his wing. Sometimes Duncan. Jesus, not like any of this is new. Just because I don't write every day lately doesn't mean anything has ever actually changed.

I'm aware of your disappointment. I just don't care. 

 

 

Grocery-store Caviar.

Eating standing up in the kitchen over the island with a teaspoon of what turned out to be super decent caviar (sturgeon, don't eat the salmon) on double-toasted grain bread triangles with a bare swipe of sour cream, one drop of lemon juice and a single ring of green onion. I will eat five or eight of these before Caleb cuts me off, if for nothing than simple manners and not being a little pig about an expensive dish. It's akin to sitting down at a seafood place and eating all of the oysters that come out instead of sharing them with the whole table and only having two or three. I don't like oysters though so that's easy. 

What would you like for dessert tonight? His eyes twinkle. The blue is black today. Fall is coming. The monsters come out at Halloween and boy, don't I know it. 

An espresso martini or three. I laugh. I'm not going to get any of those. Dry champagne it is. Maybe a scoop of sherbet in one of the good ice cream bowls. I've broken so many over the years so maybe in a plastic bowl though we don't have any. We got rid of most of the plastic we used ages ago. Now it's glass, wood or ceramic. So breakable. 

Like me, I think as I drop a triangle face-down on the counter. 

 Oops. I scoop it up and use the side of my finger to collect all the tiny little eggs without crushing them to return them to the bread. The sour cream is gone. The onion ring persists and Caleb rolls his eyes as he turns to get the bottle to refill our flutes before I start cutting myself off. Sometimes you need a silly champagne night. We tend to be a little hedonistic this week as the nights get sooner, cooler and longer and Burning Man rages south of the border, which again we did not go to and I'm glad. 

So why not accept a dinner date from the devil even if I think I'm never going to be invited to sit down this evening unless I break protocol and just do it without waiting. 

I haul the stool over close to the plate and climb up onto it. He laughs. 

Feral girl summer. 

You betcha. I wink and answer quietly. When was she not feral? How wild did they want to pretend I wasn't? Does that even make sense gramatically or am I delusional still? She'll ALWAYS be that dirty little princess running down the path to the ballfield in her costume gown, caviar or not. Some apples don't fall far from the tree, even if they're grown on fumes and expensive treats alike. 

The sunset is at eight thirty. A swim and a bonfire tonight?

Swim yes, fire no. Maybe a sauna and then swim in the ocean? 

Nightswimming with the sea lions seems like a real rager of a plan, Neamhchiontach. 

So does inviting your ex-girlfriend to have dinner under the nose of her husband. 

So you're salty enough that we can skip the rest of this. He holds up the black tin. A laugh escapes him but it's softened to a ghost chuckle. Just happy to be here, as always. We're not fighting. We're not physically fighting. We're not lobbing threats or promises today, we're just enjoying an early dinner for two on a random cloudy Thursday evening by the sea. 

What about after the swim? Would you like to watch a film?

Can I bring my friends? 

Sure. He knows he stepped just a little too far and was just a little too nice and we had a little too good of a day date to push his luck but Caleb will always tell you the only way to get what you want is to ask for it (or take it) if need be.

 On Saturday then we'll see if we can find some of those martinis you're so fond of. 

Oh, I can't on Saturday. The party, remember? (Ruth and Lochlan have a joint birthday party every year). 

Ah yes. Save it for another time then. And he shoves the last triangle into his mouth without offering it to me first, probably in order for me not to eat everything before he gets anything at all, while I pour the remainder of the champagne into my glass for it to act as anaesthetic against life itself. 

One Monday left after today.

It's always been a countdown to empty beaches in the fall, even long after I sort of have my own beach these days though it's Pacific, and as I've always said, not even remotely the same. Lochlan will tell you I'm never happy. Caleb will tell me anything I want to hear, like he'll buy me any beach I want, as if that's a thing that can be done, and Ben will just tell me to breathe. 

A fighter, a yes man and a puppy dog. What more could a girl ask for then that? 

 I'm so freaking tired. Two nights of no sleep but I got to see Mammoth live before the rest of the country and most of the world, technically. Got all of the t-shirts and a cool pilot hoodie. Got to rock my face off for his super short set and then Ben asked me if I was excited to see Tremonti live because we went to Creed's tour on the weekend and I forgot he was back in the band. Ditto Scott Philips so now I have also seen exactly half of Alter Bridge which is a bucket list but frankly I'll take Mammoth any day over most other bands because every single song one on every single album is good. So good. 

I also drank house wine until it was coming out my eyes at the stadium and I don't call it a mistake, just an expensive choice but sometimes you have to just go with it. It was packed and it was a good witnessing crowd, if you know what I mean. We counted religious tatttoos for a while and had a big public debate on whether or not my angel wing tattoos were religious or just cool. I vote cool but also religious. Jacob would have really loved this show, though it was my sixth time seeing Big Wreck and something was off about the whole set. I think Ian Thornley does better in a much smaller venue. I am ashamed that the crowd didn't really know That Song. It's a classic. His sound was a bad mix too but he's so talented does it matter? Another show in the books. Next up is the Who. Why am I going? Why not.

It's cold today and about to rain and I love it. I love the cold breezy nights. I love the fact that all of the loud kids around town are going to be locked in their classrooms in two weeks flat and I love love the end of summer, did I mention that already?

The airshows are done, the fairs are dwindling out and the farmer's markets are packed with root vegetables and end of growing season potatoes. Our tomatoes are an endless gift here in the yard and I've been working diligently at overhauling the perennials that stopped growing or don't work where they are and finding or propagating replacements. I rooted a whole bunch of hydrangea, since the boys seem to love them and I ripped out all of the columbine and the ummmm potentilla? Fuschia? Whatever failed to grow the past two years but had a prime location right on the main path. 

 We have nothing planned for this weekend. I think I'll spend it in the kayak. 

Four Mondays 'til September.

 The perpetual popsicle box is still the most popular thing in the freezer and today I learned that I can still knead pizza dough (looking forwards towards dinnertime) with the big Kitchenaid mixer after cutting my finger quite badly trying to use a recently sharpened paring knife to separate frozen slices of Russian pumpernickel bread for my breakfast, with apple jelly, butter and a new takeout coffee because it's Friday and someone went into town and got us all some. 

I would never volunteer. I can't manage three trays of hot coffees but that's just me and I have more coffeeshop experience than all of them combined. 

Anyway, so pizzas for dinner. I'm a purist and I like to wear myself to smithereens but now finger so no. I need to change the bandaids because to my surprise and delight the fat brown squirrel that showed up to help himself to everything in my garden, from the suet feeders to the end of the cherry harvest to all of my bean plants left me a gift. 

An acorn that has become an oak tree. A Bur Oak. Do you know how hard it is to grow a tree from an acorn? I do and I only found this because he tucked it in between the hydrangeas that I propogated earlier this summer and I was weeding and tried to pull it out. It now has it's own little pot on the step and in a few years I will find a permanent spot for it but only once it's big enough to survive. 

I watered everything (again by hand, not machine. Forest fires and water restrictions keep me doing as little as possible, just to keep my perennials alive but like I said there are ten days left in the dog days of summer and so everything looks yellow and crispy and then everything will bulk up again and become lush in the fall.

We're watching Andor (the new season) and I started The Last Showgirl last night with Dunk but we turned it off a half-hour in due to the time. I don't sleep so I'm always low-energy. I want to sleep all day in the breeze but I can't and then at four I crash and then at midnight I'm wide awake and prowling the house again. Is it ever going to change?  I doubt it. 

I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass. I'm eating avocados and zucchini and strawberries until I fear I might become a plant, only to be dropped into the earth in someone's yard to grow into a mighty tree to stand through strife and drought and natural and political disasters until someone woefully decides I need to go in favour of a glass and steel highrise. 

I think I'd rather be a seedling in a pot never to grow or advance from the place I'm in right this very minute. It seems safer this way. 

 

The dog days of summer.

She's a woman so fine, I may never try to find her
For the good memories of what we had before
They should never be changed, for they're all that I'll take with me
Now I've gambled and lost my summer wages

This is not my favourite part of summer. This is my coffee, tea, shaved ice and popsicle part of summer. The part of headaches and sunscreen rashes and short one-sentence responses. The waiting-it-out, sticky-thighed, want to shave my head part of summer. The part where I try to get anything done involving movement before ten in the morning. The part where my hair and skin dry out so much from the endless floating in the pool trying to sleep. 

 I sit on the porch most of the time simply because the north side of the house is shady and cool. The trees are my best friend and the ocean fades from attention until fall. When I have had enough I jump into the sea but it's not as cold as the Atlantic nor is there ever sufficient wind for me. I grew up on an unforgiving coast, an unforgiving girl and summers hold so much emotional weight you don't even know the half of it. 

Every dirt road, every faded curtain flapping against a broken sunroom window, every greasy knuckle on a midway ride. Every loaded glance from a stranger, every sugary strand of cotton candy, every lost-earring, torn-wallet, sweaty-jeaned, worn flannel moment of summer is to be endured and not forgotten. 

Every strum on a warped and ancient acoustic guitar (the Martin). Every sigh as the fan breeze touches flesh, every kiss deferring anything more as it's just too warm. Every wish becomes polar, every sunbeam cursed in favour of one from the moon. 

I lift the hem of my dress up over my knees and attention shifts. I run my hand over the back of my neck and everything's different and yet everything is the same. 

The cats languish just out of the light that plays on the floor, little wisps of fluff and whiskers rising up in a cloud as they settle for their long litha naps. 

I had some work done on my Jeep last week. Henry's birthday is coming. It looks like it will fall on the hottest day of the year but I have had twenty-three summers already to figure out how to make a big chocolate cake that won't melt and how to host his entire universe for his favourite dinner without perishing in the punishing heat and by the end of next week my youngest child will be twenty-four years old and just about the same age I was when I started thinking about becoming a mom. Maybe. Some day. And I'm here on the other side of it now and Henry and Ruth are my absolute pride and joy and the heat doesn't matter. Time passing is a marvel. Another summer and everyone is good. The bills are paid. There is food in the fridge and I still ration the air conditioning like someone who has been meaningfully, sustainingly poor, and maybe the boys laugh while I cry but I doubt those things about me will ever change and I don't think they should. 

I tied a peach-coloured ribbon on the grill of the big fan in the front porch. There's a ceiling fan there but it makes noise that drives me crazy so I brought out a big copper table fan and set it on the floor. The ribbon blows out straight and makes me think of The Great Brain and Catcher in the Rye. Or maybe On the Banks of Plum Creek and anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut, which would take me the better part of thirty more years to enjoy, if honesty is what you like. 

Seven more Mondays until September. I wonder if I'll make it or if I'll melt instead. I wonder if this headache will ever leave me, like the people leave the beaches when fall routine calls them all away and it's all mine again. 

I wonder if anyone else ever read and still reads all over vastly different age demographics. Sometimes I pick up Matthew and the Midnight Tow Truck and sit and read it. It's not a long read but it was Henry's favourite back when he depended on me for everything. I always tried to make their lives magical and I hope they feel like I succeeded but I don't dare ask. I'm still making up for the parts that decidedly were not magical and that's the curse and the blessing of being a mom, I suppose. 

 Lochlan is asleep in a chair across from me. Feet flat on the floor, sleeves rolled up, head thrown back, red hair cascading in curls off his shoulders, he doesn't seem to mind the heat or the cold. He is level and strong and doesn't find wealth any different from poverty, truth be told. He doesn't mark the passage of time and he's never had a problem with the way Kurt Vonnegut writes and he doesn't care if there's other people at the beach or fan noise or a melted birthday cake or a weird look from a stranger and that's why he will never truly understand my relationship with summer and I suppose I will never understand his either. We've had forty-seven entire summers together give or take and it still feels new. 

Heralding the arrival of a stranger.

Neamchiontach. 

I hear his voice and look over to see Caleb standing in the screen door. I've been out here on the porch for hours listening to the sparrows sing their morning song from the safety of the trees and I've been watching a fat brown squirrel absolutely decimate the suet cake I hung up for the tiny birds. I decided to make one chockful of big seeds to help them have lots of energy and sustenance in the heat but all that did was bring the larger birds and the fat rodents. I know they're here, I know the boys want crow friends so badly but I only want the tiny little birds. The chickadees. The goldfinches and sparrows. The thrushes and the juncos. 

My coffee is barely warm now but the birds are so loud I don't want to go inside so perfect timing.

He holds up the coffee pot. We went back to a regular coffee maker a while ago and it's what works. I nod and he comes out. He waited for permission. Another first in a long line of firsts with my Diabhal, because he is not accustomed to not being in charge for this incredible length of time. 

It's been forever. 

It remains a constant.

I really like this. 

Please, I nod and he comes out on the porch. Bare feet. Linen pants and a waffle shirt. Unshaven but rested. Permanently on vacation. Liquidated save for a few things. We're out of the real estate business. We're out of the Gods and Monsters business. We're out of the drama. We are exhausted. We are old. I don't even know what we are, I just know that if I go to his suite he no longer locks me in and no longer makes me cry. 

He takes my cup and turns away to pour. Safety first. Ha. What a stark difference from probably my entire life. He turns back and places the cup gently on the table. 

Thank you. 

Would you like breakfast?

No, thank you. I'm fine for now. 

He takes that as hope, as when I skip breakfast we have a snacky brunch consisting of bread, cheese, olives and more coffee. It's lovely. 

I'll leave you to your book then. 

I laugh. I don't have a book. I'm communing with nature. 

Always communing with something. And with a laugh he disappears back inside. A chickadee comes and lands on the railing and he laughs too but in birdsong. I wish I could laugh in birdsong. That would be neat.

 I found a baby bird in the roses this morning, stiff and cold and I buried him in the woods. I cried for just a minute but frankly this is life. There were no injuries that I could see, and if some tiny soul has to die on my watch then in my garden would be the absolute best place for it. Everything is in bloom, it is cool and quiet, lush and green and no one is allowed to disturb the peace that exists there. The whole front of the property is a neutral zone. No arguments allowed, no raised voices. No construction and no bad energy. It's a need, not a want but no one disrespects that edict and for that I am forever grateful and contented there. 

I was picking up pieces from the windchime. It was a twenty-five year old set of mini chimes that I bought in the prairies and it never made any noise but all of the strings were rotten and many of the chimes had fallen in the wind last night. That's the only reason I was in the roses, otherwise I never would have known. 

In any case, the bird is free now for real, his little feathered soul protected by some words I said and I wiped my face on my hand and went back inside for toast and coffee. I have marmalade and fresh grounds and good rustic homemade bread and so it was lovely to spend an hour enjoying my food. I am left to my own devices to savour the second half of my coffee after spending the first half with the boys. They drink their coffees in one go, or at least in less than the time it takes me. They don't like lukewarm coffee. I can easily finish a cup I forgot about when I find it hours later and so I take my time now. 

It's the calm before the storm. No air conditioning yet but we are ready. I hope there are no heat domes and no bullshit and just a cool relaxing summer. No deaths would be nice too.