"It's Gypsy"

(This is my take on what happened. I wasn't there. My imagination fills in where facts are lacking. I wrote this and put it on hold because I wasn't sure it was my story to tell. I've come to the realization that it is my story. As Nick relayed the events of her death to me I experienced it and was traumatized by what I could see in my mind, and I was traumatized by his grief, and I grieve still).


     I answered the phone. It was our good friend Nick from treeplanting. The one who convinced me to come back for another season after my premature "tree-tirement." My crewboss, and Jon’s right hand man. Our very own Zorba the Greek; an accidental wise man who often muddles the words of common sayings in such a way as to make them less cliché and more true to life.  I was so happy he was calling. It's always great to hear his voice. I wanted to hear about their plans, when he and Carrie would finally be done the berry-pick, finished with the season so they could join us in the Yukon.

I must have joked to him about something. It was always jokes between us. Then silence.
“This isn’t a happy call,” His voice broke. He inhaled and a raw choking, guttural weeping noise came over the phone. “It’s Gypsy.” And instantly my heart was pounding. I was begging him to say she was ok. The words flew out of his mouth. I saw it happen. I witnessed everything through his words. I choked and wailed. Looking back, I have never cried so freely, with such lack of self consciousness. OFten I have cried and become wrapped up in the romance of it and when the sensation of sorrow passes I make an attempt at keeping the tears flowing. This time I did not have to try. The sorrow did not pass. We were in the car, parked outside the ambulance station where Jon works and I didn't care who saw or heard me. I was saying no! No. No. No. The whole time. I was seeing it. Nick is a storyteller. I was there.

They pull up at the side of the dirt road and let the dogs out of the truck. Spade and Gypo run off to do their thing. The four veteran treeplanters amble around to the tailgate. Sit and light cigarettes, and drink strong coffee from dented travel mugs as a sparse rain falls. It's early September and all of the trees are in the ground. These four have paid their dues and so they are granted a few extra weeks work at a decent day-wage for picking berries that will later be processed for the seed, grown in a green house, and replanted as part of forest reclamation projects. It is meticulous, though easy work. There is no quota and the day rate allows lots of time for breaks, making it an ideal cool down to the hardcore pace of the planting season.

There are fresh truck tracks in the mud of the road and the planters don’t think anything of it. The dogs run free, happy to be out of the motel for a day of work. Spade darts into the bush, Gypo  up the road to check things out. 

A few days before Nick came upon Gypsy with a discarded deer head. He took a video. “Here’s my little dog, my little girl," He says affectionately. "I don’t know if you can see what she is doing, but she is eating the brains out of a deer head.” She was not one to frolic with the other dogs, she commanded respect. Not aloof, just damn majestic, a husky-greyhound hybrid plucked as a puppy from the kennel of a legendary Dawson City musher to live the nomadic life of the dog of two treeplanters. I once saw this dog chase a black bear through a clear-cut and bite it in the ass. At the time, terrified, I screamed out her name. She ignored me. She knew what she was doing. At a plant north of Fort MacMurray she flew with us in a helicopter, sitting tall and peering out the window in wonder as we commuted from our remote camp site. Carrie said Gypsy had realized her life long dream of flying like the birds. 
Throughout my time as a planter, I wouldn’t see her for a year and then I would, and I would call to her and she would run towards me at dog-race speed, smiling, teeth barred, she would say a quick hi, take a pat, then go off and do her own thing. She didn’t like to be fawned over.

On this particular day last fall, the group climbs back into the truck and  they continue up the dirt road, looking for a good work site for the day. They round a bend. A pick-up truck appears up ahead in the drizzle and Gypsy is running along beside it on the other side of the ditch. She is getting old but still has an elegance to her stride, her waist tucked in dramatically behind her deep chest, betraying the greyhound genes within her. The planters gain on the truck. (I’m watching it all in slow motion as Nick speaks). Perhaps the occupants of the truck yell out to her, because Gypsy bends her neck ever so slightly, looking over at them. There are two of them. It’s somewhere in Northern Alberta. Lake La fucking Biche or some shit hole. And this beautiful creature is running along side this strange truck. Her strong, graceful neck arched towards them. The group of four berry-pickers get closer and closer. And then they see it. A gun. Pointed at their beautiful dog. There is nothing they can do. They hear it. A single shot. Those red-neck fuckers fucking shoot her. A deafening bang and she falls hard to the ground, her neck twisting back, her bright orange collar visible amongst the luscious wet greyness of her fur. She is heaving in the wet grass of the shallow ditch. The truck drives off. I can hear the incredulous screaming. "You fucking shot my dog!" 
They carry her bleeding into the truck and Carrie holds her. The love of their lives. Their entire universe. They want to follow the truck but are scared of the gun, scared to go anywhere but towards help for Gypsy, bleeding and moaning. They wrap her up and Carrie holds her as they drive to town, her rain gear sopping red with blood. Just blood everywhere and she is in so much pain and she is dying and she does die. She turns cold in Carrie’s arms. And Spade is never the same dog after that. And no one is the same. And I am not the same. I saw it all through Nick’s words. I felt it all through Nick’s grief, as well as through my own.

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.

Wisers Whisky

There is a place under the oats, under the sky, where you buried treasure for your future children. To make them strong. They would dig not knowing how deep. Not knowing if they were in the right place, until they were, or until they gave up. 

If I were to talk about it, you wouldn't remember the time you bled the walls red. Your blood Josef. Painted the walls. I made you believe you were asleep. Cleaned you and put you to bed. Alone I scrubbed away the traces. Rung the towels until the water ran clear.

It was the car I loved if not you. Volkswagen Jetta. Sheep skin seats. Filthy as fuck but well built. It was the same colour as your skin exposed to the sun all those hours working outdoors. 

Most saw the smile lines and freckles, the arms, large and brown. They thought you were simple. And you were. Except your simplicity was a distillation of great wisdom. There is something to be said about brawn gained stacking bales of hay, and brains nourished on fresh air and open spaces. You were dazed and rugged to everyone else, but pristine in private as I read you to sleep.

Do you remember the night I screamed? Everyone heard. You woke and it was real and you were scared too. The bear breathing inches from our heads. Huffing and sniffing. And then terror. The huge paw pressed against the wall of the tent. And I was wrapped up in it, suffocating and so I screamed bloody goddam murder. So loud Saskatchewan heard me. But then it wasn't real. It was just nighttime and I was just dreaming and you said "What the Shit" in the stoned-surfer way you had of speaking sometimes when you were half asleep, and the people camped around us who thought I was dying laughed when they heard you because they knew I was okay, you were there. 

I'm convinced you knew I was begging the universe. Chanting, chanting, chanting. Taking the Whisky like it was communion. But it wasn't time. They found your car abandoned in the airport parking lot. Your tin of weed wrapped in a bread bag, wedged in haste under the seat, 4 joints expertly rolled.  

You were gone. They'd tease me and tell me you were coming back to dig us out of the mess we were in. You'd bring a flat bed truck loaded with dirt bikes for everyone and we wouldn't have to walk for hours through the mud anymore. I believed them. Time trudged on, knee deep. And gradually your absence became so real and everywhere felt so empty. I stopped looking. Stopped waiting. Stopped and savoured how completely free I was to remember the straw of your hair, the lines of your face, and the smooth white skin underneath it all.

i bet you'll think it's about you

And it is.

I've been writing fiction lately. Doing what I like with people and places and events of my past. Twisting settings and conflicts and loves every which way. Reliving and creating.  

For example. In the summer of 2009 a man I was involved with came close to throwing hot tea at me. Stopped and glared and tried to scare me with the fact, he could have. I wasn't scared. I was too busy revelling in the freedom of no longer lying to myself. I was leaving him and he was angry, had the arrogance to believe he could tame and keep me forever. 

In fiction the tea gets thrown. Thank you for the dress rehearsal Mr. Gilbert Blythe, jilted lover, cheesy dresser who talks like a cowboy but is an east coaster. "I reckon" haha oh I am mean. For some reason it still irritates me. How someone is convinced their love alone is enough to sustain a relationship, when the other person involved has clearly stated their indifference. 

And this irritation stems also from my own sense of guilt for my own stake in this convincing. Had I not weaved myself into his family, learned his grandmother's recipe for cinnamon buns and sat and charmed his parents at so many weekly family dinners, and oh god spent an entire, all expenses paid week, on a yacht in the Bahamas with them. 

Out of so much awkwardness. Out of guilt. Out of uncomfortable pangs of nostalgia for someone I tried to love once and the failure of fate to fetter me to this simple capsule of an island and this tidy island family and this island nice guy who was so nice and knew he was so nice he couldn't compute my desire to leave. Out of all this emerges words on a page, chiseled and sculpted as I choose. 

I used him. Sure he let me. But I used him. And I am not finished.

hail me a taxidermist

Our landlord is a taxidermist. (a really good one)

The other day we were in a bit of a hurry so Jon pulled the car around to the shop and had me jump out to pay rent. I was feeling off. Not personable at all. Feeling like the perfect mixture of both my agoraphobic grandmothers, aching knuckles and all. And sometimes when I am feeling this way I say things without thinking. 

I can't see through the shop door so I knock and open it slowly. A beautiful life size diorama of animal death welcomes me. A caribou, neck curved towards me, nostrils as if drinking me in; bear skin upon bear skin piled upon the pollished concrete floor; chocolate brown, tawny, snow-white furs hanging on hooks or draped over wooden crates; trophy busts with glorious racks; entire creatures frozen in this beautiful imagined moment. 

The taxidermist asks how are things and I say great.
I turn the question back on him.
"We're surviving," he says.
"Not these guys," I say.

tiny cocoon

I like this photo we took of Juniper right after coming home from the Whitehorse General Hospital/Spa because it makes it look like I gave birth to a multivitamin instead of a human being sized creature.

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?

wasted hatred

I over heard someone say "me likey" today. I spun around to see who was spouting such obsolete verbal regurgitation and then had to pretend to laugh at how funny and charming she was because she noticed me noticing her and it was either that or smacking her in the annoying ass ironic glasses clad face.

Pretty sure it was a Simpson's reference and pretty sure the only people who quote the Simpsons are trying way too hard to be cool.

Pretty sure people who quote anything in day to day dialogue are trying way to hard to be cool. Like that chic that Squanch's best friend brought over here the other weekend who was pretending to be the starving artist meanwhile daddy pays for an internship because she doesn't have to work. sorry, no amount of strategically nonchalant boho scarves will be able to cover your fucking prada purse and fur hat you poser biatch.

So anyway, she kept engaging in conversation with the guys about world politics and bla bla bla and not once did she look at me and then she would pluck some reference out of her ass and so and so scholar said this about that and I am brilliant and then look at squanch like she wanted some kind of reassurence that he thought she was smart and the whole time I was just knowing that he was thinking she was a pompous twat same as what i was thinking.

there was this feminist feeling i got from her but instead of being happy to be a strong intelligent woman she was trying to prove herself to have a dick and that it was bigger than squanchs dick, which is impossible if you ask me.

She actually bragged to the cashier at the grocery store that Squanch's friend was a poet.. haha I bet she has all kinds of fantasies about how she is slumming with a ginger, woodsy, philosopher poet. too bad he will be writing poems in spooge on the walls of the tents of whatever girls take his fancy at planting this season.

woah rant.

so much angers me these days.I know it's a waste of time but i need it out of my head so i can get on with everything else

me and bovary

reading madame bovary and she reminds me of myself back when i was stuck in a relationship with a "nice guy" and wanted out but he was just so "nice" that i waited until a year passed before coming to my senses and running as fast as i could away. madame bovary has made me think about this nice guy and when I am thinking i am sometimes under the impression that i feel bad, but i do not. i did what i had to. i was honest.


some of the nicest words i have ever heard, the kindest words, have been "i am not fallin for you" said by a wheat haired, sun burnt and brawny tree planting man who realized i was falling for him and wanted to save me the misery of being mislead. people should save each other the misery much more often than they do.