My Kind of Yukon Gold

Sometimes the world is so bursting with inspiration it hits me over the head. That's what happened today. I was tucking some clothes away in the crawl space and letters and photographs rained down from the walls. 

Of course I read them. They were over 20 years old and written from various women, all to the same man, all within the same 3 year period, all about how much they long for him, love him, culminating in a 14 page letter written by the jilted woman who was carrying this mans child!

And so I am crackling with fictive energy, pregnant with poetry!

cursive hearts hidden 

still beat, fatherless

children still breath

Am I a terrible person for finding these letters? For reading them? For sharing some of the most poignant excerpts on my blog?

(Names have been changed)

 

Mary:   I just got one of my sculptures fired (actually 2 of them) but one I'm really pleased with. It broke and I    

                           need to repair it but I think I can do it so it won't be obvious.

Cath:  P.S. I left the earring on your dresser so it should be there if you found the        

                  other in your truck.

Josie:  (expect me when you least expect me

              with the baby in me or in my arms)

I ache for these women. I too have attempted to repair beautiful broken things, left talismans behind,  worn our child like a wedding ring.

a day at home

1. wake to baby crying
2. nurse baby
3. put baby back in crib
4. repeat a few times (kinda like hitting the snooze button except the button is a person)
5. eventually get up and turn on kettle and radio
6. put baby in highchair
7. give baby cheerios whilst making oatmeal or something else (this is important, baby is hungry, baby will complain loudly aka cry or scream if not given cheerios to eat and/or throw at floor aka dog while baby waits for real breakfast)
8. drink tea and smoothie while feeding baby breakfast, eat gluten free cereal myself mmm
9. surf internets and become angry at ridonkulous house prices in yukon
10. listen to Jian Gomeshie cooing through the radio
11. get baby and me dressed
12. curse at the front door which is nearly impossible to open without a crowbar
13. let dog out
14. yell as dog runs away with neighbour's dog
15. do dishes
16. play / deposit every toy and every book on the floor
17. pick up all of the toys and books
18. make lunch
19. feed / eat lunch
20. let dog in feed him water him
21. do dishes
22. change baby
23. play upstairs in loft with baby
24. read story to baby
25. sing song to baby
26. nurse baby
27. let baby turn light switch on and off a few times
28. deposit baby in crib
29. nap and or diddle on the computer while baby sleeps or doesn't sleep in crib
30. wake up and play outside or inside
31.  think about making dinner
32. make dinner
33. welcome dada home for the evening!
34. eat dinner
35. do dishes or bathe baby (we trade of on this)
36. play
37. read stories
38. put baby to sleep
39. collapse on chesterfield
40. eat something like popcorn/giglet/or chips while watching something on net flicks (or sometimes we just ignore each other and he diddles on computer while i read or vice versa.
41. SLEEP 
42. wake up to baby crying and feed or ignore her  x 3

no running water

It didn't happen on purpose. We didn't seek out housing that lacked something so fundamental as running water because we were trying to save the world or the whales or the whatevers. This is just how things worked out and I am glad it did because it means we don't live downtown, it means our front yard is a field of horses, followed by a line of trees, followed by a slope, followed by another field of horses, followed by more trees and then the river and then, wait for it, MOUNTAINS!

For example: Early this morning I was outside and I noticed a single line of footprints in the snow. On closer inspection, Squanch attributed them to a fox. This fox makes up the bulk of the traffic in front of our cabin for the last week. Of course there are Raven's in our airspace, they heckle us from time to time, but I can deal with that.

Life without running water. RADICAL Eh? Apparently. It's one of the first things that came up when the issue of a certain neglected northern reserve close to a diamond mine was in the daily news. "How do they live? How deplorable for the government to let them live like that!" I have never been to this reserve, and I don't mean to belittle the issue, but whenever I heard mention of the no running water detail my first thought was: "Big deal."

Because it really isn't a big deal for us. Of course this is only because there are many places we can go to acquire free, clean, safe water.

• BLUE JUGS - Drinking, dishwashing, sponge bathing, face washing, teeth brushing. We have about 6 of them and we refill them at a nearby service station (gas / convenience / laundromat / showering place) where many other beardy locals draw water from as well.
• LAUNDROMAT - Laundry and showering facilities for Me (same place as above)
• WORK - showering facilities for Squanch
• RIVER - summer supply of all non-potable watering needs such as: laundry, watering garden, showering in the bathing house equip with a woodstove for warming water, and this spring, will be equip with a paloma for on demand water heating purposes (all those treeplanting camps we lived/worked/ran are coming in handy). 

Let's be clear:

I miss bathtubs. Words cannot express how spectacular baths feel when you can't have one at will. I am getting goose bumps just thinking about it. Today, I'm listening to Greg Brown while making lasagna and trying to keep the baby happy aka alive and there is a line in one of his songs "I want to buy you the biggest bath tub in the world." And to me, right now, those are the most romantic lyrics ever.

living at the cottage

Home right now  (taken before the snow came, forever ago in fall)

I've spent some of the happiest times at cabins and cottages and I've always wanted to live in one, didn't see why people kept them tucked away as sacred weekend and holiday places, when they could have that feeling all the time and live there.


And so when I get the sense from people that they think I am roughing it HUGE - like impossibly HUGE, like "you have no fucking running water? how do you bathe? where do you go to the bathroom? BUT YOU HAVE A NEWBORN BABY!" - I just have to laugh  because our life is so amazing, so steeped and strong with everything good and everything I believe in.

You may have a cottage or a camp. If not you may have been invited to one at some point in your life. How restorative do times spent in these outdoor focused places feel? How warm and calm and gooey do you feel hugged in the arms of logs, of wood, of the stuff the trees made so you could have a roof over your head?

flood

So the other morning when I woke up to the sound of water and thought it was the rain outside my bedroom window, well, it wasn't the rain. It was a burst pipe in the apartment below us where the rodentia couple live. They have been on their little rodentia vacation for about a week now and while they were gone their little rodentia world got a bit wet.

We alerted our landlord when we noticed our water pressure had become super low. My Manquanch had a shower and it was just drip drip... Type A landlord brushed it off as probably the city and the construction But later that day Squanch discovered a river of ice flowing from one of the rodentia's window sills and called the landlord who freaked and came up from the city to check it out. All I could hear from up stairs when he finally arrived was "OH SHIT. Oh man-o-man o-man." I was just waiting for the F-bombs and they eventually came but only after I thought the poor man was going to burst into tears as he dialed every plumber he knew and kept getting no response. Rodentia have no idea life as they know it has changed and are off in rodentia lala land. I hope they have renters insurance, but who ever does?