Chilliwack and Hope

And so began a journey to see towns I seldom see.  I know they're there, and can provide services and amenities as reasonable civilization, but I usually just pass them by along the freeway.  I've brought my bag full of camping gear mostly intending to be independent, but as weather unfolds into unwelcoming rain and cold, I chose instead to stay indoors - either splurge on my own room with a shower+bed, or hobo out at a 24hr establishment.

I depart in March.

And what about March?
It started off with my annual volunteering at the wine festival, featuring Spain+Portugal which I treat as a pleasant primer and research for my trip there next year.  I enjoyed engaging with common enthusiasts, principals and reps, and my fellow team.  That was a nice time,  for both the lectures and tasting room.
Right on the heels of that was a friend's birthday+wine tasting, and I found the conversation there comparatively less... enriching? Just that there's so much and it's yummy with nothing distinct about each and if given the opportunity to attend a tasting room they'd be SO hungover for work the next day!! Frankly this pervasive attitude towards alcohol just seems cheap and trashy and makes me just not want to invite people along to such events.  Too many around me make this a prerequisite for having a good social time.  Jeez people, lay off the sauce already. 
Maybe I'm a stick-in-the-mud or just not a party girl, but this just amplified my desire to be mostly alone now.  Along with my usual seasonal restlessness is the anniversary of sad events last year - I am blessed/cursed with a very good memory of such things - and the prevalence of St.Patrick's Day and Spring Break to party loudly and in excess.  I've chosen not to contribute my birthday to such, it would only get lost in the mix and and overlooked altogether.  I just want to go... away.
Thus I have selected a destination/route and will trek elsewhere, alone.  Chilliwack and Hope: two reasonably close-by towns along a major corridor which many pass by often but few visit longer than a quick lunch break on a road trip.  Although the weather may be inhospitable still with frost in the morning, I will spend a few days with tent and camp stove, living off ramen noodles and granola bars.  And a bottle of wine that was likely intended to drank young but that I've been keeping too long - if it's turned sour I'll simply get some oil+bread and sop it up with appreciation nonetheless.  Maybe light a candle.  Maybe bathe in a river.  Maybe watch the sunrise.  I think I need something clean, even if I'm dirty in the forest.  I need fresh air, even if it smells like the farmland of the Fraser Valley.  It just feels more honest and rewarding.  Even this long walk with a heavy pack gives me satisfaction, simply because I can.  There may come a day when I can't.

Re-staining.

What can I say about February? We've had snow and rain, as can be expected.  We've had Valentine's Day (which I still don't support one socially recognised day to acknowledge one relationship exclusively, and thus tried to spread out to see several treasured people); I went to Le Crocodile for fine French cuisine - passed on the fois gras but had escargot and liked the frogs legs in a broth rather than deep fried I had last year, and then a very nice caribou meal.  The next day I had a casual seafood melt at Speedy's pub on the river in Ladner for Valentine's Day brunch.
I skipped the Chinese New Year festivities in Chinatown, as the weather and crowds seemed less appealing than a lazy comfortable time among friends.
I should get going, on what I do not yet know.  There is my usual restless need for spring and better weather and opportunities, yet close memories of last year are uncomfortable and never far from mind.
In my travels I've found that places are like secondhand furniture: I'm not the first one to 'own' it and many have been here before, but it's new to me and now that it's with me I will personalise it to make it mine.  Sometimes that means sanding, stripping, refinishing, polishing, painting.  For wood this can be staining.  Old stains from many careless coffee cups on a table without coasters, spilled sauce or leaky pens, or perhaps a deliberate decorative stain that was meticulously done with care but just doesn't suit the new owner.  Maybe it's an accidental spill, or ugly blemish, or just outdated color.  It all soaks into the grain and can take much sanding to remove, or else find a way to re-stain it to some satisfactory condition I can live with.  That's where I'm at now.  Some places I was happy there I hesitate to revisit just because they're beautiful as I remember them, like Ireland.  Some routes I tread frequently like my childhood stomping grounds, and have enough associations both good and bad that it seems a multilayered spattering of nothing specific, just familiarity like an old workbench with the history of many projects.  And some places need to be re-stained, a way to reclaim them.  Given my typically very good memory of what happened where and when (perhaps I should've been a museum archivist or such), I ruminate carefully on the size, depth and degree of these stains to best choose what to accentuate and what to 'fix'.

Steady first, then movement.

"You have the power over your mind - not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Dragon Turtle, combines courage and luck with longevity and stability.

As the first month of 2018 comes to a close I have no writing, arts or crafts to offer here.  Honestly I've been quite inactive and fermenting in thoughts with no resolution.  
-Thinking of turtles; native American spirit totem symbolising a self-contained creative source.  When I was younger I was spontaneously prolific, now much of my creations are tempered with design and - of course - planning.  Perhaps dormant dragons resemble turtles? Or maybe a dragon turtle in Eastern folklore (pictured here).  Some features remind me of my developed 'demon' creation I've drawn for years.
-Thinking of stones; commercially valued semiprecious stones or common tumbled beach pebbles.  Pretty and smooth and strong, their steady solidness a contrast to the plants that are just awakening now, which hopefully won't be killed off by a late frost.
-Thinking of grey; the myriad of different greys that carry more than a suffocating fog, but a serene dove grey, an earthy slate grey, the scholarly scratchings of pencil or graphite grey, the phantom smudge of smoke grey.  The stormy sky of summer grey, and how it's different from the calm sky of winter grey, and the grey of the sea.  Grey will compliment and balance the excitement of vibrant color.

I also rewatched an online series Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness by Alain de Botton.  Whether one agrees with or not the philosopher's suggestions presented, dialogue and self-examination are helpful in maintaining a critical yet fair perspective on attitude and circumstance.  "In order to live wisely, it isn't enough to read a philosophical argument once or twice, we need constant reminders of it, or we'll forget".  I find it quite refreshing.

I had back-to-back Australia Day and Robbie Burns Day (Scotland), and thus my obligatory kangaroo burger+didgeridoo and haggis+bagpipes. So begins the stirrings of far-off travel, though still just ideas.  Many places I've been I could happily revisit, but the latest thought are of northeastern Europe meandering from the Baltic to Black Sea, and Australia+New Zealand which I've been meaning to do since I was a kid, put to the back burner for 'easier' trips - in countries where I can hobo on a park bench and the wildlife isn't trying to kill me.

For Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. You know I'm not an overly boisterous person so if I'm not the classical definition of  'merry' I would at least strive for some reasonable steadiness even?
As usual I've avoided as much gross commercialism for the holidays as I can, and have focused my attention on a few homemade crafts for gifts.  I made a beaded Christmas spider.  I made chocolate rabbit pins for my rabbit people, inspired by the Make Mine Chocolate campaign to raise awareness for live rabbits (and by extension all pets) being given as gifts and subsequently abandoned after the novelty's worn off.  Originally they were vague rabbit silhouettes made of brown ceramic tiles, mine are done larger with more definition made with oven-bake polymer clay.  I made a few and those left may be treasures to find in a geocache I hope to publish next spring.  Maybe.

Christmas I spent with my family at their house for a few days.  I got to decorate a pre-fab gingerbread house (while my nephew plucked the candies off the roof, there was little interest/patience in the activity itself).  I colored in his new coloring book with new crayons.  I'm not very familiar with Thomas the Tank Engine and surely got the colors wrong, but it seemed mildly entertaining for a time. I have an _adult_ coloring book at home but with small shapes defined by outlines it leaves little imagination for tonal shading of surfaces or suggested textures. So here is my offering anyway, enjoy. 
Now I'm back downtown with my adult coloring book, and will meditatively try not to overthink it, commit to the action of doing rather than the finished result.  Eventually I'll find a subject and ambition enough to use my new pad of watercolor paper, to make something both loose yet precise, with flowing pooling pigment but crisp edges, subtle and pale.
Honestly I'm not looking forward to the new year as it will hold several anniversaries of painful discouraging times.  Perhaps I can drown them out with distractions, like a crow with something shiny - curious and attractive yet most likely useless.  I know it's all tied to my attitude and perspective - and no one else can fix that for me - nevertheless some days are more difficult than others.  I still consider myself very privileged and lucky, even when it doesn't feel like it.  I guess the key is gratitude, and to be grateful for the blessings who still choose to be in my life. 

Hau wech die Scheiße

The end of October has been marked by my friends moving.  After years of steady tenancy their landlord upped the rent too much too quick, and it's better to move than stay.  I spent several days unearthing every plant - their plants - for relocation.  It felt like gathering and boarding Noah's Ark, as most likely the old house they took care to maintain and improve will be simply demolished without reservations for property development, but that's not our concern now.
November has seen us now unpacking everything that was packed in a hurry, and thus the subsequent reevaluation of our material things.  They've been storing much of my things too, in boxes in the crawlspace.  Things from another lifestyle of living on my own, all the simple things that one takes for granted a home should have; plastic dish drying rack, wastepaper basket, pasta strainer, etc. The things typically discarded and repurchased with every move.  I'm not sure why I keep those, perhaps just a convincing safety net if ever my life were to drastically change direction and circumstance again - at least I'd have a pot to piss in, so to speak.  Or else I'm noting that even the cheapy dollar store goods are seldom just a dollar anymore.  Or I habitually prefer to limit my waste production, if it's arguably not 'garbage', it should still be useful...?
More intriguing is the unearthed objects and scribblings on scraps of paper.  Like an archaeological dig I have to remember the period and context by where I find them.  Then returns the associations and memories.  Enough time has passed that all emotions have mellowed, for better or worse. Menus, business cards, receipts.  Envelopes to my old address, written in the penmanship of people no longer in communications.
When I was in Germany one of the local Hamburgers hosted me a week or two, and like anyone with a new pet he taught me a clever trick, or a snippet of his foreign language that I could carry with me onwards to make friends in Germany; "Hau wech die Scheiße".  He said that was a colloquial way to say "cheers", and translates to "Throw away the shit" (to be followed by downing a shot).  The intention/interpretation may get lost in translation, but seems like an appropriate mantra for now.  It's a spring cleaning but in near-winter; not only for possessions but for mindset too.  Too fresh wounds of this year still sting, but I can sort the wheat from the chaff easily from seven years ago.
Fall is a time of collecting, accounting, inventory and harvest, yet anything I had cultivated in spring/summer left me disappointed and empty.  I'm not looking forward to a cold and sparse winter.  Perhaps the best course of action is to plough it under and let it rest, like so many rotten vegetables.  Hau wech die Scheiße.  Let the earth regenerate as it stays dormant.  Maybe next year will be better.

A pinecone amongst roses

People value roses; the friendly yellow, the cheerful pink, the romantic red, the pure white.  Across cultures they are revered for their scent, color and shape.  Upheld as the ideal symbol of feminine beauty.  Also that our perceptions of beauty value the fresh and young, the budding bloom gradually unfolding to reveal its gifts to the world. 
Once a rose has fully emerged it has its season in the sun, then it loses its value.  Soon it is no longer fragrant, the brightness darkens and fades, and the lush petals fall away.  It matters not that the rose was selected to be cut and briefly enjoy fame in a vase or passed over to remain on the plant unselected, those blossoms will wither regardless.  When even the leaves are exhausted, you are left with only a stick of thorns.

I knew a young man who loved roses, and most of all was fascinated by the concept of a blue rose.  Blue roses do not exist in nature.  Breeders have produced mauve or burgundy roses and given them "Blue" in their name, but the bright blue roses are white roses that have been artificially dyed blue.  Like a simple elementary school science experiment, a white rose is cut and placed in water dyed with blue food coloring.  Once severed from the bush that bloom will expire, but not before it desperately drinks up the blue fluid that permeates the petals from tip to base, and stem and leaves along the vascular system.
I think sometimes on that the innocent white had to be manipulated with a chemical imposed upon it, just to be considered a unique and interesting aesthetic.  Was plain white too boring for you?
I wonder if that young man will be forever chasing the elusive... unattainable... novelty...

Behold the lowly pinecone.  Typically they're only noticed once the roses are done for the season, and only some fraction of the rose-lovers would see the beauty in a pinecone.  It has no vibrant hue, just brown.  The richness of wood brown, or maybe sunbleached-through-the-seasons grey.  It has no scent, at least nothing remarkable.  They're more common and simply grow uncultivated, and may even be an unsightly annoyance to be raked off the lawn and openly scorned as they fall with a thud onto the parked car.
But what about their gifts that they hold? Shouldn't that deserve celebration too?
They hold the potential of future forests, armouring the seeds within. Their thorns are but tiny prickles, slight yet unconcealed on scale tips, just for protection against those who would crush it in their hands.  Their shape has its own elegant symmetry and arrangement of scales the Fibonacci sequence, as roses do.  But unlike roses their shape has the strength of wood, and designed to not only withstand but respond to the elements.  They open when dry and close when wet, and will continue their function long after their seeds are dispersed, to diligently execute their duty and purpose.  They're resilient, still trying to open and close after being broken and disfigured by cars driving over them, they skitter off into the gutter.  They're tough, for as long as they can be.
They're beautiful in their own way.  Just different.