more from the walk

Wellington is always game for the outdoors. This dog is my muse. He is so effortlessly beautiful. Such elegance and grace in all that he does. He's taken to running over and greeting my neighbour when she gets home from work everyday and the other night he just staid over there and had tea or whatever he does with her and I forgot about him and eventually went to bed. Then at 11pm I hear this barking and it's him huddled on the porch wanting in.

Juniper was awake for most of the 3 hour jaunt. She stays silent in the chariot unless I stop for too long. She looks sleepy because she decided to wake up every 1.5 hours for some miowks ALL NIGHT LONG.

Which is why I look so ghastly tired. Sometimes I think I see a glimmer of Grace Under Fire in my photos. Strange. 

I went barefoot on the way back. Just had the urge. I spent an entire week barefoot during frosh week in my fourth year at Trent. Helped kids move bar fridges into their dorms and brought them on tours of downtown Peterborough. What a fucking hippie I am sometimes. Anyway, the path from the cabin through the fields to the river is basically sand and it had warmed in the sun. Walking with such awareness of the texture and the temperature of the earth, how  utterly Buddhist of me. haha. I hope the farmer finds my prints and gets a thrill from the thought of Pocahontas meandering through his back forty. Are toe rings really relics of the 90s? I think maybe I've had that one on since then haha. 

Obligatory mountain shot.

(Shizzzzop talk: I figured out how to make my photos stretch to fit the page perfectly thanks to a blog called My Girl Thursday here! This is so exciting because I was never happy with how puny my photos looked and making them bigger just made them bleed into the sidebar. Yes, I am a techno weenie who doesn't know anything knows a bit about html.)

"When the student is ready..."

"...the teacher appears." Buddhist proverb

Late last summer Squanch and I were exploring in our area and we ended up on a nearby mountain slope picking wild cranberries with two strangers, while our dogs intermingled, weaving golden threads in and out of the little pine trees around us. It was one of those encounters that feels like a gift from the universe. These two women were wonderful berry picking companions, and every time I sprinkle those frozen red orbs into my blender for a morning smoothie, I am reminded of the serendipity of that afternoon.

Well, the gifts from the universe keep coming (I sound cliche new-agey when I say stuff like that but oh well, it is the only way I can explain it). Turns out one of those women runs an outdoor learning centre from her home where there is a beautiful building (I describe as a hippie/zen church), that hosts, among other things, yoga classes. And so, by this chance encounter I was enrolled in the best yoga classes I could possibly imagine!

The teacher blends her incredible knowledge with an uncanny intuitiveness. She takes time to explain things, allows us to experience the poses how it feels best to us and guides us gently with her calm wisdom. By the time class ends there is a sense of balance to my energy, I feel as if I have exercised and had a massage at the same time. 

The atmosphere of this hippie-zen-hall is perfect for yoga. We do mountain pose in front of a wall of windows overlooking a mountain range. A wood-stove crackles in the corner while we lay down on our mats for our final relaxation pose.

I must remind myself, as socially anxious as I am, such gifts often come from outside my comfort zone. We approached those women in late summer, on the side of a mountain, and struck up a conversation, and after a long dark winter, I am still benefitting from the harvest of this encounter.

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?

happy happy yey

I want to turn this into less of an outlet for my meaningless bitching.

This may be the end. hhahahahahahaha

Whateves, positive stuff is fun to write about too, I guess. Like how awesome the barn i work at is. Yeah. Love it, love the people, love the horses and how there are dogs and cats running around everywhere and beautiful fields and trees.

I am going to apply for an office assistant/ communications job with a non-for profit sled dog racing organization for the summer. super stoked abuot that. Such a cliche for the yukon, but i have sort have come around to cliches since my hatred for them in my journalism days. They become cliches for a reason, because they are true. why fix it if it aint broke. see, a good cliche to explain what i mean.

my story has been germinating within me of late i have so many secret ideas. i wish I had time to write.. maybe i'll put some down in here.

so my last day off (without school or work was MArch 4 and my next one is easter friday (good friday?) damn right it will be a good friday. I may cook a huge pot of mac and cheese, the presidents choice white kind, and sit in bed reading all day. I will wear a diaper so i don't have to get up. put one on the dog too so he doesn't have to go outside.. hahahaha oh DEUSCZ! that is one of squanch and i's words we made up in our lingo. we have a ton.

lalalalalal staying happy YAY!~ I will just icnore all the annoying ass-hats tomorrow, which means i may have to go though the day mute and deafen myself with my earplugs. There is a deaf girl in my class. I am so JEALOUS! sorta, not really. I can handle being selectively deaf... music is important to me (used to be more so, still is but i don't have the time for anything other than bob macowitch in the morning and rich terfry at night on the radio.

I'm going to go to CBC and do that compass thing to figure out what my political sway is. Pretty sure it will be Bloc Quebecsquaw. yeah, that's right, you wanna leave bitches, then leave. i throw a vote behind seperatism. kidding, i love quebec and want them to stay but it's kinda twisted a complicated kind of love like the love for a red headed stepchild.. haha philip on survivor looks like a black mr burns.

my equestrian dog

The dog came with me to the barn today. Two amazing parts of my life colliding and it worked out wonderfully. Welli got to run around like a maniac and meet all kinds of creatures and people, and I got the satisfaction of being able to bring my dog to work with me. He was hilariously afraid of the horses at first, and I was worried he would be an idiot like that one time he chased one of the therapeutic riding academy horses through an electric fence when I was helping with the lessons. Good thing all the riders had gone home by then or I would have been in SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!
But yeah, it worked out so well having the little fella with me I think I will bring him every weekend now. He's going to be an equestrian before I know it!

Ditch the TV!

I'm not joking. Not only is it a time robber it is a mind control device. It dumbs you down so you can easily be brainwashed into buying the shit that is being flashed into your brain on the screen. I believe TV is responsible for many of societies problems and if people weren't so busy staring at it they would be off living real, fullfilling lives filled with creativity and goodness.

I could go on and on about the benefits of liberating myself from tv...
And yes, I still catch up on some programs on youtube and download favorite tv series' and watch documentaries on the cbc website, but I chose what I am watching. I found when I was living with a tv I would absentmindedly turn it on and watch whatever was on, even if it was of little value.

The activities that have replaced tv are so much more rewarding. Crossword puzzles, cooking, reading books, LIVING!