Sprung

Lower MacLeay trail, 10:00 a.m.

Everything has sprung.

The trail is no longer open and bare, but surrounded on both sides by salmonberries that seem to have sprung up overnight, now so tall that they begin to arch overhead, holding the trail almost as an embrace, cozy. The stream banks are sheltered from view by the small thicket of shrubs that has filled in, and the hillside is a riot of shapes and shades of green, yellow, brown. Green, so green. Who knew there could be so many shades of green?

I have a fleeting moment of hesitancy, thinking I must have gotten on the wrong trail somehow. No, I remind myself, there is only one trail, and you have walked it all winter. It is the same trail, but now it is springtime, and things are wonderfully, magically changed. And indeed, as I look, I recognize those stones, roots, logs, pools - familiar, but bathed in a new shade of spring.

A plump red robin hops skittishly from branch to branch just ahead of me, not quite afraid, clutching a bit of moss and a fat spring worm in his beak. A dainty Douglas squirrel, much less pretentious than its larger, invasive Northern Grey cousin, pauses in its climb up a gnarled root to cock its head curiously at me.

Even the stones in the path glisten, moist from the light rain that is falling, drips displacing the delicate leaves of the fringecup and the duck’s foot plant so that it looks as though there must be a herd of tiny animals moving about underneath them.

My eyes are wide, my head moving from stream to hillside, ground to sky, soaking up the new-yet-familiar beauty of springtime sounds and senses. I can’t suppress the child-like wonder and awe and delight I feel, nor do I want to – I let the smile play freely across my face, shining on everything I see.

Only the trilliums are fading, their petals crumbling from stark white to pink to deep magenta, until finally they shrivel and fall to the ground, signaling the end of the beginning of spring.

Missing

In the back of an Ecuadorian pickup truck taxi, Galápagos, Ecuador. March 20, 9:30 a.m.

It hit me when we hit the pavement:
I´m leaving the Galápagos
and I´m not done yet.
As we left the dirt road and Jatun Sacha behind
a wave of loss overtook me.
I wanted to cry, turn back, turn back,
I´ve left my heart behind
in the soil and the scalesia and the seeds that stick,
in the mora and the machetes,
in the water and the washing stone,
in the sweat and the strain and the siesta.
But we kept on driving
and I pretended that my tears came from the wind.

An Ordinary Evening Stroll

After sewing vests for three days straight (helping DeMara with costumes for the MHCC musical), I couldn't wait to get out of the house this evening. I seized the opportunity to walk to the library and return all of the books that I'm not going to be able to read before I leave for Ecuador. After having been shackled to my sewing machine for days (okay, not really), all my senses were alive and attentive to the myriad sights, smells, sounds and sensations of the utterly ordinary, made noticeable simply by being noticed. Here are some of my "noticings" of my 12-block stroll to and from the library:

~ The ever-so-slightly heavy, damp feeling of the air under a sky that's been thinking of rain. Each lungful a truly refreshing experience.

~ The sharp and insistent call of a bird hiding in a tangle of branches.

~ The heavenly jasmine-like scent of a plant with dark green leaves and clusters of small, purple and white star-shaped flowers. Partial redemption for the townhouse developer.

~ A small boy trotting to keep up with his father, asking him eagerly if he's looking forward to going to the sushi restaurant. The father, exhaling cigarette smoke away from the boy, responding enthusiastically, "yeah, that'll be great!"

~ A slightly larger small boy painstakingly dragging a large, flat box up the stairs to his house, followed by his patient mother who knows better than to offer to help.

~ A woman sitting in her yard filling a bucket with weeds, despite the fact that the sun set an hour ago, oblivious to the fact that she is weeding in the dark. Her door is open, as if she just stepped out for a moment, though it's clear she's been out for hours.

~ A teenage girl in a pink striped shirt practicing the piano by the bay window in her living room, the notes drifting gently into the evening.

~ A vibrant painting of a happy couple, proudly displayed in the living room, visible through the half-open front door.

~ Clouds dappling the sky, in the post-twilight mirage that tricks the eyes into thinking the clouds are sky and vice versa.

Evidence, Photographed

Lower MacLeay Trail, 8:40 a.m.

Following up to my last post, here are a few photos...

Evidence

Lower MacLeay Trail, Wednesday, 5:15 p.m.

The tree itself: a ramrod straight spire, its top broken unceremoniously off. Actively being gnawed, ripped, chewed from the outside in by goodness knows what, exposing huge orange swaths of fresh underbark and deeper wood.

The path: why I stopped to notice the tree itself. Across the path, straight as a road leading from the base of the tree, a swath of bark pieces, strewn precisely as though to mirror the tree itself, in memory, slowly fading as the wood decomposes into the earth, like the chalk outline of a body at a crime scene.

Impressions

On the #15 bus, 7:18 a.m.

What stereotypes do we build about people on the bus? I have only seen this man from behind, but already he has surprised me several times. He is wearing blue jeans and a camouflage army jacket with the hood up. By the way he holds himself, I guess him to be about 65, comfortable with his place in the world. I imagine thinning grey hair and a narrow face - not the stereotypical vet, but someone who's been around. There's a history behind the camouflage, a reason.

When a seat frees up in front, the man moves forward to sit down. He pushes back his hood. Surprise #1: he has a shock of thick, wavy, plentiful hair - it used to be black, but now is mostly grey. The kind of hair a younger man might self-consciously run his hand through a few times after pushing back the hood, to make sure it was in place.

Surprises 2 and 3 come in quick succession: as the man turns his head slightly, I notice that he has glasses. Then he pulls a cigarette from behind his right ear.

I can't tell why these things surprise me, or what I had expected, but as the man gets off the bus, I wish I had looked closer.

Grinning

On the phone at my desk, 10:30 a.m.

My cheeks almost hurt from the gigantic grin that's been spreading over my face for the last 10 minutes. I just hung up from a phone conversation with Linda Smiley of the Cob Cottage Company, talking about registering for their 8-day Complete Cob building workshop in June. I've been wanting to attend this workshop for several years, and the knowledge that I'm finally going to is enough in itself to make me smile. But what's really making me grin is the possibility of doing a work exchange for an entire week before the workshop. Not only will I get the workshop for half-price (and that's no small change), but I'll basically be getting an extra week of instruction and practical experience - double the fun for half the price! Now, if that's not enough to make you grin, I don't know what is.



Follow-up moment, 10:50 a.m.

Linda just called me back, and it turns out that the work exchange will be 15 days in order to get half off the price of the workshop (essentially, "earning" $30/day). I've got conflicting feelings about this - dueling emotions of apprehension and eagerness. Part of me thinks it's a lot for them to ask, part of me gets antsy at the thought of leaving my apartment for another 3 1/2 weeks straight (not that I'm worried about my apartment, it's just hard to stomach the thought that I'm paying for it while I'm not making any money and when I'm not living there for a almost month at a time), part of me argues that the additional 8 days will just give me even more experience and I may as well do it while I have the flexibility. I can break it up into two weeks if I want, and do one week right before the workshop and the other at some other time - now I just have to figure out if I want to do that or if I'd rather lump it all together. Remember: pay attention to your gut.

Searching for Optimism in the Environmental Studies Aisle

Powells Bookstore, 12:45 p.m.

I find myself physically closing up, hunkering down, hugging my books tighter and tighter to my chest as I lower myself down onto my haunches to scan the lower shelves, searching in vain for a shred of optimism. I am practically in the fetal position. The titles are so depressing. What are we doing to our planet to make the Environmental Studies aisle such a depressing and desolate place? This aisle used to inspire me. Now it scares me. There's nothing I want to read because all the words spell doom and destruction. Titles such as Losing Ground, Trashing the Planet, and The End of Nature lie in wait on the shelves; I feel as though they might snap at my hand if I reach out to pull one down. My emotional reaction of horror manifests itself in a very real shrinking away from the shelves, feeling for the security of the Sustainability shelves behind me, hugging my book on meditation and my pocket Spanish dictionary -- my assurance of a positive reality -- to my chest. There are tears at the edges of my eyes.

Maybe this is why I need to go into the field of environmental science - to assure myself that all is not lost, that hope remains. For now, I sit in the aisle of the bookstore, overwhelmed -- but not quite defeated -- wondering what the future holds.

Living Close to the Surface

What happens when you start paying attention? What happens when everything you do, everything that happens to you, has meaning and significance - even if you don't know it yet? What happens when you open yourself to the possibilities, when you make yourself vulnerable?

Laughter comes more readily, and tears as well. Emotions are close to the surface, flowing freely. Honesty is easy. You let go of things you cannot change, and learn to live happily within yourself. You start allowing yourself to experience new sensations, to open your eyes and ears and hands and heart just a little wider every day. Magic happens.

I want to live closer to the surface. I want to travel so deeply into this universe that I cannot help but be purely and completely me. I want to live my life with intention and attention. I know that part of this will come through writing. The moments captured here are my attempts to bring myself closer to the surface. Written in the moments of experience whenever possible (though posted here later), they may be raw or incomplete, but they are genuine. After all, what is a lifetime but a collection of moments?