Chapter 129
As I first sit to write, the snow is falling thickly… almost halfway through May. Grumbling abounds. It seems local tolerance is wearing thin after all these months. Heart attack snow season – when the snow falls wet and heavy, and our attempts at clearing it result in tweaked backs and necks and on extreme occasions, can trigger a heart attack. Be careful out there.
A few hours later and the snow has gone… well, mostly. Dense trees on east-facing slopes hang onto their tracts of dwindling snow with grim determination while the opposing slopes are proudly displaying blankets of shiny green Kinnikinnik and the occasional crocus. I have seen my first brilliant fuchsia pink shooting star of the year, always a moment of inner celebration. Who could resist those cheery little flowers in all their brilliant hereness? In my garden, after a long winter of bird-feeding, it’s paying off on the music front: The background sounds of the Grosbeaks, Pine Siskins, Robins, Finches and Sparrows is such a beautifully layered delight of peeps and trills and whistles. I sat outside submersed in the sounds of the dawn chorus at 5am today… admiring a classic Chinook Arch over the western treetops.
Thinking what to write, what to share? What will interest you lovely folk? Out of the Rut originally referred to my transmogrification; hopping out of my comfortable life’s routine in Canada, shimmying through an extraordinary reshuffling of everything about my life as I jettisoned most things in a somewhat open-ended leap across the world. Thailand, Bali, Spain, England, Amsterdam, Canada, Colorado, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii… and that was just in the first year. I hitched myself onto the Fantuzzi train which runs 24/7/365, double on a few select days. That was a swift change of pace indeed.
As ever, a walk outside takes me on a few miles and many years’ journeys, filling my head with a thousand ideas I swear I’ll remember when my fingers hit the keys.
The ripples of time generally wash through these writings, from sub-zero to beach weather we rove as I piece together the random pathways that translate into a non-rut-like existence without the benefit of massive physical, if not global, travel.
Infinite alternatives exist. I have to remind myself of this and lie back, sink my body piece by piece into the blessed, cool crisp sheets. Place awareness, cognition, in remote body parts – focus on the sensation in the tips of the toes, visualise each bone in the foot, works just as well as counting sheep. I rarely get past my knees before I’m either spark out or rambling off on an uncontrollable tangent about marmalade or what crimplene trousers were really intended to do, perhaps some subtle cold war propaganda?
It is, ludicrously, now in the mid-twenties. Water in hand, I stand a moment looking through my kitchen window to the sparsely-clothed trees beyond. The movement of rust-tinged fallen leaves morphs into dancing copper butterflies. Momentarily confused vision – images magically appearing and disappearing, so closely matched to their background. Beneath barely budding trees, a mosaic of punctured leaves; thrusts of spring green surging forth at great pace, gulping sunshine with gusto, bronze, resinous buds peeling back to release lime green tips into first light. The lust of spring is upon the land once more.
As all our lives have taken on a somewhat surreal tone, no doubt for you too, the daily minutiae of life is a vital topic of conversation. My esteemed parents in Spain have recently begun the process of emerging from their Covid Cocoon and returning, with extreme care, to the occasional pre-C activity. A coffee in their favourite café – forgone for 15 months – was a rare and note-worthy event which has been reported by me to at least four people including you. If I think about the potential among our family for repeating of said anecdote, it’s quite amusing to recognise how far and wide a simple local café’s reputation may go these days.
We have some real gems right here.
With gratitude and love,
Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com
403.931.3866 (h), 415.525.2630 (c)
