khaki-colored breakfast

When I finally sat down to eat this morning (things distract me, things like trying on old clothes I'd forgotten I owned, or vacuuming out the old Smith-Corona Secretarial) it was to a delicious meal of my own devising: oatmeal with raisins cooked in and soy milk, whole-wheat toast with tahini and honey, and the pièce de resistance, a sculpted glass with Devil Sauce* in the bottom and foamed soy milk on top, with just a dash on cinnamon.

*Devil Sauce is the following: butter, icing sugar, cocoa, soy milk and Jack Daniels, cooked slowly and beaten with a whisk to create the best chocolate sauce ever.

Anyway. It was a filling, sweet, khaki-colored breakfast eaten at noon. While I took it in, I read Toni Morrison's Jazz, and suffice it to say Morrison has quietly won over another fan with her robust and succint and just plain gorgeous prose. She writes about NYC in the 1920s, the lives of various Black characters there during that time, and the jazz scene that was emerging to intertwine their lives and change the world. After this I have lined up Carol Shields' The Republic of Love, and then Richard Heinberg's The Party's Over.

Life is good, and for living these days. I have a hard time with the fact that time passes, with accepting that what was, yesterday, is today only memory. I was reading back in my old journal from travels today, in Melbourne I wrote: "What I fear above all else is losing my memory." And then I went WWOOFing and learned in Lorinna, "...that life is beautiful, life is to be lived. Death comes! Death steals us away in bits or it comes bang! unnoticed, but it comes. Grey sneaks into hair. More color must be worn in the clothing and wrinkles in skin are to be worn with pride. Love and honesty are what matter the most..."

I'm not saying I've reached any pinnacle; I realize there is no pinnacle to be reached. As Pema Chodron, nun from Pleasant Bay's Gampo Abbey, says: "The day you die you will still have a to-do list." What I'm saying is that each day I become more acquainted with the fine grain of life, with the way days go and come and go, and with the precision and love that is required to bring the wandering mind back to the present. With how important it is to do things you love because time will pass regardless of your filling your time with joy, and you might as well be in love with your own life. It's yours!

So. That is why I am going to uni in the fall. I will be taking English literature, political science, biology, psychology and Latin (yes! Latin!) in the first semester. And in the second, much the same, only for poli sci read economics and for Latin read philosophy. This is as exciting to me as the thought of seeing a foriegn country. I will be living in a small, agricultural town with a good farmer's market, on a leafy street, 15 minutes from school. I will see Winter again!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the moment, July is just ending. There are new kittens in Mum's house, little scampering bundles of fur and bones and eyes and meows, Ginger/Hobbes and Garou. And there are poppies, luscious and red like crinolines, in the garden, as well as lobelia (purple and bell-like) and mock orange (happy and white, a little tree at the edge of the garden), and the tomatoes are getting long and leggy, hiding the little green buds that will be fat and red by summer's end. I sell pottery and bicycle around and see old friends (the other night I was able to hang out with Sarah Hart, my childhood best friend, in the home of our old teacher, Judy King...I found the old Asterix books and we felt like giants in the old haunts) and meet new ones and swim lots and paint my toenails splashy colors, and make plans to dye my hair.

Maybe red. We'll see. Next week is a long way off.

card worn out, new tweed skirt---u can't touch this

Spent the day shopping. Now, I know how that sounds. Please let me convince you that I really am a sane girl, smart and not at all focussed on money, but.. get me in proximity to nice new things I want and holding a card which enables me to take them out of the shop without seeing any cash or knowing exactly how much it's going to hurt me later and...I end up coming home with:

1. a new tweed jacket (only 10$!)
2. a new tweed miniskirt (only 5$!)
3. a black cropped jacket, straight from the 80's (only 20$!)
4. two new bras (hey, I needed them)
5. some music (OK, 3 new CDs.. but they are good ones!)
6. a new book (The Party's Over, by Richard Heinberg, it will be sent to my house next week.)

Plus groceries, plus Claire's birthday presents (she turns 21 on the first, and if you are in the area, you are invited to the potluck party on the Oregon Rd, bring food and/or drink and/or your sweet self and celebrate this most lovely of ages, only second to 20 of course). So I'm content. I also got the latest Vogue. Finally! This caused Mum and I to have a discussion pertaining to the industry of style, and the awful-ness (word?) of following the 'beauty myth', and decided we agreed with one another.

Another thing I have to get before uni starts is a dictionary and let me tell you...I may sound like a geek, but I can't wait to have a big, awesome book full of words and their meanings in front of me. Alacrity? No problem. Concupescent? Not even difficult. My own dictionary--and I can take on the world. Hey, at least I'm a geek with great clothes.

Mum is watching the Junos from sometime in the late 80's behind me, and so to end this post, I just want to say, the day will come when the Hammer is back. His stage antics wearing purple-velvet jodhpurs and a tin-foil jacket are just too cool, his awkward maneouvring of a gold lamé bathrobe are so styling, that I predict... we will see MC Hammer again one day.

evening scene

Eddie Izzard plays in the background, Eli giggles at it often ("Hoocha hoocha hoocha, lobster") and I am pretty darn tired. To the point that you're not likely to fall asleep if placed horizontally, but so that everything is just slightly irritating, enough to get under your skin. Am resisting this. We drove to Port Hawkesbury to see Gordie Sampson play his lovely tunes (guitar and voice like silk, sultry and soothing)  and didn't mind the drizzly evening. ("Hey look, a creeping kid! For my new film--The Creeping Kid!") Tomorrow I have work again but Mum has agreed to drive me up in the morning, which means I get french toast (wha hoo!) and then I can unload the kiln at my own pace, whilst listening to Gordie's new album.

As a point of interest, here is the website of two interesting and very cool folks I knew in Whistler, Kiran and Geoff, known as the e-lopers. Their book is coming out in 20??, but it's going to be called A Year and a Day, that much I know. They (as they will tell you on the great site) travelled the world seeking the roots of marriage, inspired by their family who wished for them to celebrate their love with a ceremony... they weren't so keen on the idea, having only as examples North American marriage ceremonies, which can seem a bit trite to some. So now we have this wonderful piece of work and soon a book, exploring marriage around the world. Very cool! Like I said.

Now, to giggle at Eddie some more and then go to bed. ("He was getting a tan, that's what they said!")

And if those quotes don't make sense to you, get your hands on "Dressed to Kill", today. Tonight!

lazy hazy summer days (and nights)

Well ain't that the truth. The past few days have been muggy, and a haze sits on the valley by 8 am. The skies are overcast most of the day with that burnished heat coming through that so irritates the tourists they feel they must complain to me, poor hapless pottery girl that I am. No worries, though, on today, my one day off this week. I spent the morning shopping and conversing in Baddeck, pretty little thoroughfare and civic district,  and came home to have a sweet lunch of a whole-wheat bread sandwich (hot-pepper havarti, olives, lettuce and a deliciously ripe tomato, bursting at its red skin) followed by a perfect nectarine. There are little things better  than a perfect nectarine, and I believe they all contain chocolate in some form.

Most of the visitors to the island come in late July and August,  and no wonder, the weather is of course fantastic, you can swim, you can avoid snow (hopefully), and there are 'things going on'... these elusive 'things' happen all year long (meaning parties, get togethers, soirées) but I suppose in summer  they are especially 'happening' due to the high volume of people around to attend them. Speaking of which, last night at Mary Ann's house on the Meadow Road (the very same road I live on, only the other end, you know, darling) a gathering of women was put on, meaning an excuse to sip chambers, eat chocolate, and gossip, under  the name "Women's Spa Day". When we arrived the hostess was up to her ankles in some sort of foot bath/massage parlor hybrid machine (I don't know, all I know is that it vibrated and smelled nice), her hands creamed up and in protective baggies, and cucumbers on her eyes. (The face mask and hair in a towel just goes without saying.)  There were clothes galore for the rummaging in one corner, and piles of food in another. A pond for swimming was a short walk away. Needless to say, a wonderful evening was had, by women ranging in ages from 15 to mid-60's. I even had my nails done--a French manicure! I say.

The other wonderful thing about so many visitors in these months is that people you haven't seen in ages come out of the woodwork, rather, step off the plane or out of the car. Sarah Hart is around right now, she was my best friend growing up (she was the one who would coax me to cross rotting logs over swamps when I was afraid, and who loved horses when I didn't), whom I visited in NYC last June (we visited the John Lennon memorial together, and ate at the restaurant featured in Seinfeld). It will be lovely to catch up with her this weekend. I guess the key is balance, allowing yourself enough time to be alone, read a book (or watch Fashion Television--hm hmm, nobody we know) and also enough time to socialize and exchange witty repartée with those folks you haven't seen in ages. And then there's time for work! It's like Carol Kennedy said last night as she drove me home from the party,

"It's not the nights, it's the days!!"

queries

(1) How to turn the past week into a monologue with a genuine thread and a distinct voice, and then finish it conclusively? This question is one I sometimes wrestle with, sometimes ignore. This week's answer: sit down at the computer and play Ry Cooder's shiny Brazilian-flavored album Mambo Sinuendo, then open the dictionary to page 638 (kappa-keep, keep-kerato-).. peruse it a while as though you are gleaning some kind of knowledge from it, then shut it and put it aside. Consider what has been happening:

--work (clay dust, kiln fires and mis-fires, wires burning, pots selling and being talked up, handled and fondled by tourists in mini-vans with families and in SUVs with gleaming sides, fresh-cut flowers and Stevie Wonder on the stereo)

--bicycle riding and swimming, sitting on the riverbank allowing all facets of one's body to soak up the sun, dancing the 'day-off tango' with Claire when she walks in the door, walking through fields with grass as high as my breastbone and which makes gentle ripping sounds as you walk through it

--sleep, not enough of, but nearly quite

--eating (lentils and rice, cheese, sandwiches with vegetables and dijon mustard and mayo all mixing together in a zingy mush, soups of various kinds, oats, eggs, nutella, just to state some examples of things I'm masticating at the moment)

--political and otherwise intellect-stimulating thoughts, in the form of reading Harper's Magazine, watching Fahrenheit 9/11, and discussing the world events with people of all stripes, colours, backgrounds and hometowns

Once all these things have been satisfactorily pondered, the task is then to write a narrative explaining the experience of doing, saying, being, feeling, all these things at once, in such a place as North River, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada--in short, of being me. Sometimes it's just easier to make a list.

(2) Why can't Canada's Tax Agency learn from Australia's? I did in half an hour online for Australia what it took me about a month and on paper to do for Canada. But, who's whingeing? Not I. I did find out, however, that on the list of possible occupations to claim in Australia, we have such gems as stripper, surfer, strapper (what on earth is that? one who straps, I presume, but straps what?), and panel beater. Also on the list we have jackaroo (and his counterpart jillaroo, I really should have looked into that when I was there), a powder monkey, and an otorhinolaryngologist. (I pity the fool who must tell people at dinner parties his occupation is the latter, I would maybe print up a little card with a definition and just hold it up and point, then people wouldn't have to either frown and feel stupid or nod and smile as if they know all about it). Just so everyone's covered, there is rabbi, stevedore, stenographer, prostitute, and investigator (private). All told there must be a thousand on there. Another way for me to waste time, browsing through that list. They even had a category for me to pick, kiln hand/laborer. Luckily the system saved so much time for me otherwise that it was not a waste of time to write down all those occupations I just shared with you.

(3) Why does no store in Baddeck sell Vogue? Don't they know my favorite thing in the world is to read Vogue on a hot July afternoon, sipping a gin and tonic with lime? I suppose I will have to replace that this month with nutella and Harper's. Harper's is better for your brain anyway. But does it tell you what will be hip this fall? I think not. Get on it, Baddeck!

PS And may I suggest...the wise and timely words of Richard Heinberg, which can be found at his site Museletter, especially this new article.
This is the fellow who maintains Western society/empire is like a big party (only for alcohol, think oil) and the dawn is breaking, the lights are coming on, and who's going to clean up all the spilled food and drink?

and then some

"O! know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent..."

--W. Shakespeare, 76th Sonnet

Keb Mo plays his gentle blues songs, 'hey hey Loola Loo, I don't need nobody but you', and the sun is poking out and around those big gloomy grey clouds Cape Breton can't seem to shake. Mum spent the morning at the table around the corner conversing with the insurance man, papers shuffling and the nitty-gritty of money matters being discussed. To people in offices in Halifax or wherever our files get sorted and put away, we are just ink dots on bleached pulp, we are another case among many. To us, rising tax rates and rising insurance rates hit us where it hurts. Each dollar counts.

But the sun is shining. I picked Mum a bouquet this morning, as she was sleeping, from her garden that was still wearing plenty of fat dew drops. I picked columbines, an iris, lots of those pretty pinky-purple ones that grow so tall and smell of cloves at night, some lupins, and some white-headed chives. I had taken an early morning ride in with Kathy Kerr, my boarding lady, we had driven along the sleepy, bumpy highways 18 kilometers, watching Canada geese poke among the low-tide offerings of St. Ann's Bay and the water being flatter than flat. We saw bikers in black leather chaps and holding helmets stop for photo ops.

And the offerings on my scrap paper from a morning spent on the Internet include: the address of an Israeli friend met in Tasmania (I love the words, how they shape on the page: Kehilat, Kishinov, and how I wonder if I will ever see where this address describes), a new word (concupiscense, now try slipping that into conversation) and that quote above by Shakespeare. No, you all needn't worry, there is no new romantic love in my life, but I am feeling love these days--for home, for certain folks around me. And wondering about the romantic sort: have I felt it? What does it feel like? Will I ever feel it?

So, to counter these somewhat manic thoughts, and in true Cape Breton fashion, I'll conclude with this saying: "A watched pot never boils."

stir crazy?

After Canada Day, Scott the WWOOFer and I spent the day sunbathing and swimming and then brought a 2-4 up to 'le land'. (That being the 80 acres owned by Luc, Einar and co, and lived on at the moment by 8 young folk with a mind to building a place to live, or as some might deride, a commune)... We had a campfire, around which I sat with Sarah from Oregon, and she played guitar and we both sang--"Angie" by the Rolling Stones, old Joni Mitchell tunes, some Tracy Chapman. Til late, and then we lay on an air mattress under some tall spruce and talked til she had to go lobster fishing at 2:30 am. I slept til 7, bounced awake to say goodbye to Scott (he's off to Newfoundland), then went for a hike up the 'falls' trail with some Sydney (CB) friends. We didn't make it as far as the falls (time constraints), but we smacked loads of mossies and enjoyed walking along the river.

Since then, I've been working and hanging out on the Kerr farm or at the Oregoners*, riding my little bike around on freshly-graded roads (and boy is that a pain in the ass, all the gravel is freshly stirred up and my poor little tires bumpety-bump and skid in the thick road) and pottery-shop-operating like it's going out of style...Now I have two days off, today Mum and I are looking to bottle some of her home-made wine, and then tomorrow if this bug that's going around hasn't hit me, I might do a work day over at the Oregoners. Tonight is a potluck party, food and music and good times among spruce trees.

So those are the events, and here are the feelings: lately I've been mostly happy (contented with what I have around me), but also feeling a sadness, missing travel, 'waiting for the scenery to change', as Claire puts it...also feeling a bit sad about Cape Breton and the many problems it faces. Must remind myself to keep my head up and keep seeing the good things, the people working for change. There are deliberations going on (community-hall gatherings) about how we want CBI to be governed, I just wonder how many people know they're going on...I didn't know about my local one til I read it in the paper 2 weeks later. Maybe I'll roadtrip it to the next one, wherever it is.

Anywho. I shall conclude with this line from wockerjabby, which I particularly like, from her blog post about fireworks: "...all night, halfpint rockets came streaking up from the sidewalks, trailing crooked spark paths between buildings." And talk to you all soon.

*They are called the Oregoners because they are on the Oregon Road. There are three dirt roads in the immeadiate area, as well as the paved Cabot Trail, these roads being the Meadow (on which I live), the Murray and the infamous Oregon. The Meadow curves around and meets the Trail twice, it's where I live. The Oregon is also where my shop, Shape Shift, is. The Murray runs along the river flowing out to the Bay, and it's here that the Kayak shop is, where Mat and Claire work. Maybe someday I'll draw a map. Or maybe not.

fire hall dances for life

So! I've been gone from Mum's house for a week, and I come home to...72 new messages! Of course that's misleading (could I ever be anything but?) most of it was spam, that dreadful scourge of the cyberways, but still. Heaps of online things to attend to.

North River is lovely, I am living with Kathy Kerr, a woman who has a small farm with 4 horses and plenty of fields. Her home is a well-kept Cape Breton-style farm house, Mat and I have upstairs rooms and a bathroom we share. My bed is the most comfortablest thing ever. Honestly. But I won't go on about that. My room overlooks the horses' barn and main paddock, and the valley and St. Ann's mountain beyond, and work is a 5 minute bike ride away.

About work (just briefly, as not much has changed since last year, and you can read all about it in the July 2003 archives): I am the potter's assistant at Shape Shift Pottery, which means I sell the pottery, arrange the shop, and when there are no customers, help out lots in the studio. Wedge the clay, attend to just-turned pots, load and unload the kiln, glaze, and many other things. Just about everything Deanie can think of for me to do.

Over on the Oregon Road, where the 'homesteaders' live, is where I'm spending a lot of my time (when I'm not at work, or in my delicious bed)--on the acreage of some wonderful young people from the US who have a mind to build a sustainable home for themselves one way or another. They are all hard workers and also know how to have fun, which is very important to my mind. And there is the river to swim in, always a plus.

Canada Day (July 1 for all you non-Canucks) was spent in true rip-roaring Canadian fashion: watching the fireworks from the wharf in Baddeck, (oohing and aahing as we saw fit) and then going up the hill to the Fire Hall for the dance, wha. What a time! Drinks were three bucks and you had to purchase tickets for them, and the music was provided by some guy with a sound system. The lights might have been bought at Brad's Electronics in North Sydney; they were one of those cheap mock-ups of streetlights only in acid colors like purple and lime green, and rotating fiercely. People including in the scene-making: Janice (lovely as always), Kate, Catriona, (whee!!) Laurel, Michelle, Sarah from Oregon, Scott from Ontario, Jason...and whoever else happened to be within grabbing distance. At the end of the night there was a fight and some young girls were arrested, and then we left (I stole a giant plastic lobster off the wall of a restaurant, and nick-named him Rufus, he will be my new travelling partner/Jell-o mold) and got home, made grilled cheese sandwiches and passed out.

Thusly have my adventures been conducted. More are coming soon.