Snowscapes: luminescence

It seems this little mountain town of mine has had more than 10 inches of snow dumped on it in the past two days and more snow this month than in the whole of last winter. Admittedly, locals have been heard to complain that last winter was too mild.

My birdbath has grown a Russian hat, the mountain has been shrouded for days, Skunk House has icicle whiskers and Ganesha is slowly disappearing under a puffy white mantle.

The city public works department troops were out before 5 am this morning ploughing and removing mountains of snow from major routes around the hospital and fire department. Those mountains, I discovered, end up in the vacant lot across from Skunk House.

Inspired by their civic fervor, I got my aerobic exercise in and did my community service for the day shovelling the sidewalks around the library, at times up to my knees in snowdrifts. The show must go on. We close for nothing here except church on Sundays.
By early afternoon today it warmed to a positive balmy 30 degrees (Fahrenheit). I carped the diem, of course, and went out walking in my snow chain clad boots, crunch crunch crunching up and down very snowy streets, all over town, and into the edgy unploughed territories where vehicle ruts had made crevasses with knee high banks for me to navigate. I learned to avoid avalanches sliding from roofs and sudden surprise snow falls off laden branches.
Way over on the south western edge of town I find two little girls building a snow house. They have a couch and a TV carved out of the snow, some walls and a kitchen. Maybe.

Little girls: "Are you out walking?"
Me: "No I am on an arctic expedition"
Little girls: "You talk funny"
Me: "Yes, all arctic explorers talk funny"
Little girls: "Does it take a long time to be a HarTicIx Pourer"
Me: "Many lifetimes"
Little girls:: *fall about giggling and whispering*
I didn't find answers to any of those frequently asked questions as to how a tropical salt water lovin' girl finds herself in a place like this, (in other words songline of the day went something like "What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this...") but I did saturate myself for a few hours in the curious luminescence and graphic minimalist beauty of snow landscapes. Couldn't help thinking too, that this is only November, only the beginning. I am shure gonna be be one hella tough tita when I get out the other side of this mutha of a mountain winter.

Here, now

Rockin' my vegan socks off in that maybe 10% of Americans who don't eat turkey today, even as I am 100% grateful for all my turkey massacring friends in the New World who have taken me into hearts and lives with such generosity.

Vegan banana bread anyone? Later. Going out tramp tramp tramping in the lightly falling snow now. Just because I can.

Happy Thanksgiving!

North wind visit

Colder that a well diggers ass is no longer just a line in a Tom Waits song. I am living it. This is possibly the coldest this tropical girl from the hot continent has ever been.

Predictions were for temps to go way down to 22 below zero (Fahrenheit) last night. Two feather eiderdowns and some scattering of Indian blankets covered my dreams.
This snow is dry and powdery and squeaky underfoot - unlike the big wet mushy flakes I was introduced to the other side of the mountains, on the Salish Seas. And life goes on here. The toy town city sands the toy town sized roads at first light then we just bundle up in layers and get on with life, stamping the snow, salt and sand mix from our boots as we enter any building. Tramp tramp, tramp. Billy goats gruff all of us, leaving messy trails and taking care to walk around icy patches. There are no secrets of who has wandered where in a snow landscape unless you are like a small chipmunk and light enough not to break the surface. I feel so exposed by my morning meanders breaking virgin snow behind me, telling tales.
Brrrrrr. Everyone but me has spiked wheels aka winter tyres. I have two more sandbags in the back of my truck, snow chains for my shoes and the coldest fingers and nose in history.

With my heart trailing tendrils in all the places I have been, I watch the news of the other side of the mountains with anxiety. Their lives have come to a halt this week, with cars sprawled out in accidents everywhere because the storm hit smack dab in the middle of the Monday afternoon commute, roads have frozen and the hills make it impossible to navigate with any kind of vehicle. Wind has brought trees down on power lines and many are without electricity probably until Friday. Libraries and schools are closed - a bonus week of holidays for some, a cold and uncomfortable survival strategy exercise for others.

At least here I still have a ghastly gas furnace blasting dragon breath out at me while gas supply company smiles at the racing meter. Though I also have rime building up on the inside of windows because this old Skunk-Rat house does not fit together too well anymore.

Hmmmmm. Am I starting to see signs that it is time to start looking for another bivouac or is this just the nomad gene kicking in again? Now there's that little blue house across town seemed to catch my eye the other day...and blue has been on my mind a lot in recent weeks.

Goose graffitti: going south

Measuring life in goose migrations, it is eight months this week since I crossed the mountains. Creaky, squeaky goose honking calls fill the somber dawn skies. They are going the other way now. Me? Going nowhere, it seems. When in doubt, follow a goose.I stare until my neck gets stiff, face turned up to these migrant's temporary tattoos scrawled across my morning skies.

Ever evolving goose vees raise some little part of me out of this damp dark daily slough of a northern winter's immanence. Seems the palette is stuck on blue with just a hint of rose for orientation. Ah! that way east. If you are not watching you will miss it.

Blue Diwali

It's been so misty in the early mornings recently, and in the soft focussed balnketing it comes to me that I miss the deep and mournful groan of the ferry's foghorn which has been part of my last nine years of foggy mornings. Until the crossing of the mountains.

Ganesha rises from piles of golden leaves on the porch, keeping watch on the abandoned washing machine outside the inner city like, borderline squalid, apartment across the way. Once he had a ringside seat on sunrise over the Salish Sea. Oh Ganesha! Do you miss salt water as much as I do? The sprig of remembering rosemary at your feet is brittle with age now.

Went south to the city 50 miles down the highway, looking for Indian food to cheer the season. Ended up eating Ethiopian after all and glad for it too with the familiarity of spices and Swahili and nobody else in the Queen of Sheba restaurant much. Not at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Leaving, a cigar store Indian beckons me. I end up with a Hemingway for the FTE. Throw tobacco at the blues. Maybe it will light a lamp on that other river running its parallel universe course in other geographies. On the other side. Of those mountains rapidly becoming snow peaked walls.

Young man in the cigar store says "You can't go wrong with Hemingway". I say: "But he shot himself"

Young man in cigar store is politely confused. He doesn't want to be a bad salesman but he doesn't get this woman.

Still he stays on the job of marketing me cigars, taking me into the humidor. Smells beautifully masculine in there.

I say: "Nevermind the librarian thing. He was a man's man. Give me the Hemingway"

Walking down the stairs out of the converted flour mill shopping centre I wonder about the young man in the cigar shop. Is he still perplexed? Maybe he doesn't know much about Ernest Hemingway. He reads mass market paperback thrillers at the shop counter. Turned face down, sacrificing spine to keep his place in the forgettable story line.

Without candles to light on a river tonight, I do at least have a cigar to send. A tobacco offering.

I suspect there's snow in those low clouds which were all sunrise had to offer on this darkening day.

Enduring: the politics of survival

There are lasting things on my mind today, after the election results storm of the night.
Some days it feels to me to be just so much better to put one's trust in what endures: the earth and the real gold and silver of her seasons and sunrises, rather than in people and the fickle pursuit of that fools gold of material wealth. And don't even get me started on the corrupting force of the pursuit of power.

Día de los muertos

Trailing wraiths everywhere I go, waking from complex dreams of work gone difficult. Tia Catalina to the rescue.