Journey To The Center  

As I have written more than once or twice in the past, photographs work like time machines for me. A moment’s glance and a whole scene, conversation, or even an entire day or week can be recreated. Today’s post involves some jumping around through time. If you will bear with me, I’ll explain where I’ve been and where I am now – body and mind – which as you might guess, don’t always inhabit the same sphere.

As you may recall, my last post contained an update on my travels. I have been in the southwest for a few weeks. My random wanderings are now ended and I am somewhat settled in Bisbee – about as settled as I ever am these days, which isn’t saying much.

Today is my birthday. It’s an event I no longer celebrate and acknowledge only as the anniversary of the definitive diagnosis of Don’s cancer. I was going to write something about that today, but then I went back and read the post that I wrote three years ago and thought, “Wow, this says it all and I can’t do any better.” By the way, the above image is of the birthday card which Don gave me during his stay at the hospital – as described in the above-linked post. I keep the original card safely stored in a filing cabinet at my home up north, but always carry a photocopy among my personal effects in the van during my travels.

There are a few things that I would like to write about today as I think they are worth saying. The first has to do with time. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you’ll know that I have something of a fascination with time. To me, it is a fluid medium that flows first one way and then another. In my mind’s eye, it’s like one vast ocean that laps upon one continent’s shore while simultaneously lapping upon another. Events and memories float within its swell, occasionally pushing up in one place and then some place else. As I have discovered over the years, there is no means to predict or control such appearances. They just happen. When they do, they can awaken powerful responses – some pleasant, while others might best be regarded as malevolent demons.

Back in September, I wrote about an annual hiking trip that Don and I made on our anniversary. While back home, I planned to do that hike. However, in spite of my best intentions, some poor weather and other obstacles prevented my hike. Although I am not much for omens, I decided that perhaps this wasn’t the year to repeat our hike alone. Instead, I returned to one of our other favourite places – one that always seemed magical in many ways. In the above photo, my van is parked in the meadow above a spot where we often launched our canoe. For those who remember my old Burning Silo nature blog, this is the site of the boiling rain which I wrote about and linked to a video clip back in this post. One thing that was not mentioned back in that post was that our visit was about the last of the good days before Don became too ill to leave the farm.

So, a day or two after our anniversary, Sage and I set out on a favourite old trail. It felt strange to be there alone without Don or Sabrina. As I watched Sage inspecting each object along the trail, I had to keep reminding myself that she had never been to this place and knew nothing of its history or importance to me. It’s a sensation that is with me almost constantly – this confusion over who was or wasn’t with me when I was here or there. Many times, I feel Don or Sabrina moving about on the periphery of my senses. In the past, I struggled to keep it all sorted out. Nowadays, I just let everyone come and go as I realize that it doesn’t much matter to anyone other than me.

Of course, I encountered many familiar sights during our circuit of the lake’s edge. I stopped to rest awhile at a spot where Don and I would sit and talk any time there was something troubling in our lives. It is a place where we could gaze across a peaceful bay to a little treed island with a large osprey’s nest atop a tall, slender snag. It still stands there, so I took this photo from about the usual place where we would have sat watching osprey come and go as they fed their young. On this day, the nest was abandoned for the season.

I also stopped to lay my hand upon the skin of one of the great Beech trees along the path. Unfortunately, much as the cool, smooth bark felt good beneath my palm, I looked about at the many fallen Beech now decaying on the forest floor – struck down by a disease specific to these trees. I recognized one beautiful giant that I last saw standing during my final hike on that trail a little over four years ago.

The sight of the dead Beech made me feel quite sad for all the losses – both personal and more universal – that have marked the past five years. Over time, I have come to understand what an impact such losses have had on my thoughts and outlook. I no longer regard anything as permanent or enduring. To me, life resembles something slippery and elusive – a thing that appears solid and tangible, but that glides quickly and easily through your fingers like a fish wriggling to return to the water. You may believe that it is yours for keeps, but that is only an illusion.

And so I ended my hike about the lake. I had brought a lunch and the fiddle along, so found a shady spot to sit beneath a gnarled apple tree that was probably part of an old orchard on the farm that is now returning to nature. I ate and played a few tunes in this place away from the ears of anyone other than Sage and the birds and insects that rustled and chirped about me. Five years on, I am still here – vastly changed, greatly worn, but at least marginally recognizable.

It’s been a few weeks since I put up a post. Summer seems to have been slipping by almost unnoticed. Much of eastern Canada has been in the grip of a drought. Somewhat surprisingly, even this region of Nova Scotia, surrounded as it is by the Atlantic Ocean and with the Bay of Fundy tides at its doorstep, has been very dry too. Fortunately, we have been spared the extreme heat that has blanketed so much of the continent this summer.

It’s a little difficult to explain why I have not felt like putting up a blog post. Part of the blame goes to spending time out there living – going for long walks with Sage. As well, I have devoted at least an hour a day to working on my fiddle playing. I’ve learned about two dozen new tunes this summer. I have found that playing music is a good way to relax and rest my mind.

I’ve done some mothing over the summer, but for the most part, it hasn’t been such a great season. Between the cool nights and the drought, it seemed to put a lid on things. However, I have been finding the odd moth such as the Primrose moth (Schinia florida) in the above and below photos, resting on vegetation (click on all photos for larger views).

Gardening has been a bit hit and miss. Everything was growing like mad earlier on. I had managed to get the potatoes planted, and seeds in the ground quite early, so thought there would be a bumper crop of everything. However, how soon the tables were to turn! Even the formerly prolific rose bushes finally hit the brakes as the rainless weeks dragged on.

But as I have discovered through experience, there are always some bright spots here and there and you learn to watch for and enjoy them as you find them. The new daylilies purchased last summer from Canning Daylily Farm near Wolfville, have put on quite a show.

Although much of the vegetable garden has failed, there have been a few pleasant successes, including the tasty Norland potatoes which always give me the feeling that I’m digging up edible gemstones. The potatoes aren’t very large as the tops died off in the drought, but I love new potatoes and had already started digging them to eat and share with the neighbours where I planted the vegetable garden this year.

All in all, things have been going along okay. True, there has not been much work done on the house this year. I’ve tried to figure out why that should be and have come to the conclusion that my mind and body wanted a rest after the five years since Don first became ill, and the now almost four years living alone since he died. A few weeks ago, while talking to one of my brothers on the phone, I commented that this old house was painted as much with anger and sadness as with any paint. There is more truth to that than I normally like to admit. For almost four years, I have often functioned a bit like an automaton – rising at dawn and driving myself onward relentlessly until darkness called a halt for that day. However, there comes a time when the constant drain on your mind and body wears you thin as a line and then you must stop or – well, I don’t really know that there has to be an “or” but eventually you just can’t go on. This summer, I reached that point. It was time to stop and do things in a different way. Progress has been made, but without obsession, or perhaps more that the negative energy was inverted into something positive, like long walks and fiddle playing. Whatever, it feels good to regain some of the self that I used to be.