Geology

I woke up this morning to a city shrouded in smoke from northern forest fires. Maybe the campfire smell drifted in to me as I slept, because I dreamed of Barkerville early this morning. 
I wrote about it- the fires and the dreams- on Facebook this morning, and a Barkerville friend commented, saying "you are missed here" and when I went to reply I felt my eyes fill. 

My summer job this year is a lot of fun. It has built my confidence, showed me where I need to improve, given me new contacts in a new city. All valuable things. I love Saskatoon, where we are rehearsing, and I think I'll love Rosthern, where we will move in a week's time to open the show and perform for four weeks. The converted train station where the show will run is beautiful; the town itself could be found in the dictionary under Small Towns, (Prairie version). The show itself is a fun little crowd-pleaser with some pretty music and the cast is delightful. Our director is an ambitious, talented guy from Vancouver; another great contact and a good person to work with. I have been happily aware, ever since I started here, that the stomach-churning self-doubt and fear that used to haunt me before and during rehearsals is largely gone now. I am working on a very pleasant, very professional show, and I have no regrets about saying no to another summer in my gold rush town, except that I miss all the people who took me into their hearts while I was there, and are so dear to me. 

Every performer should have a life-altering gig or two on their resume, and Barkerville was mine.  

I biked down canyons, walked up mountains, ran along the lake with a weather eye peeled for bears. I heard music, wrote music, played it alone and with friends. I felt the adrenaline rush of love and the aching sadness of losing it. I took direction, took bows, missed cues, painted the stage floor, washed dishes, created dialogue, learned music and lines. I survived drama; I created drama. I broke rules, I bitched, I said "if only such-and-such was different"; I said "never again" and then I went back year after year to do it again because I couldn't imagine doing anything else. The intensity of living and working with the same people in an isolated environment for five months was a kind of geology: a slow intense grinding pressure and heat that created gold. Like rock, I cracked open- painfully- time and again, and like rock I re-formed. I will never be the same. I wouldn't want to be. 

Saying Goodbye

My friend D came to our last show yesterday afternoon with her 5 year-old twin girls. At one point I came onstage and sang my ballad, "Over the Hills". One of the twins began to cry, tears streaking down her face. D asked her what was the matter and she replied "This song is about saying goodbye".  

Goodbye to rehearsals and more rehearsals. Goodbye to my beloved double bass. Goodbye to blissful days off at Bowron Lake, and paddle board trips and floating down the river with pool noodles. Goodbye to blasting Katy Perry in Tanya's car, The Bumblebee, and listening to Graeme change the lyrics to something much ruder. Goodbye to movie nights at the Panabode, and playing new songs at cabarets. To biking, swimming, running. To espressos on the porch before heading through the stage door to work. To 30-day challenges, eating healthy, and sometimes chucking it all in for way too many sour candies or desserts at the Bear's Paw.  Goodbye to another amazing ArtsWells with plenty of friends to dance with (for once!). Goodbye to the best weather I can ever remember having up here, and the best people to enjoy it with. Goodbye to frustration and drama at work, and also to tons of laughter and unexpected delight, both onstage and off. To old friends and new friends and letting go of old, useless loves. To birthday parties for a landmark year. Goodbye to living in the 1860's, to corsets and petticoats, tourists and gold. 

There's gold enough for everyone

For those who're brave enough to come

To leave their homes and sail today 

Over the hills and far away

O'er the mountains and the streams

To all the towns on Williams Creek

My heart commands and I obey

Over the hills and far away

When duty calls me I must go

Back to the ones left long ago

But part of me will always stray

Over the hills and far away

But I would rather go with you

And look for gold in Cariboo

Along the road to come-what-may

Over the hills and far away...

Chocolate Beet Cake

The chocolate comes from the theatre where I worked all summer.
Selling popcorn in the back, grabbing sodas and corn, the chocolate didn't sell
so I get three bars for less than the price of two, 72 percent dark
from where it sat for months, listening to me sing
hearing me laugh,
and tease my friends, and meet the audience.
Everyone's hungry before a show.

The beets come from the veggie box
I split with friends down the road.
I worked with one of them but he left us
We're still friends though
and every week he sorts through the vegetables and brings me half
Right now we are besieged by beets
so I looked up this recipe

The espresso came from Bill & Claire's gallery.
Fair trade, dark and delicious.
They gave it to me free but I bought pottery
so it balances out I guess.
We visited the old church where they make their art;
Caught them just in time before a road trip.
They believe in me; no matter how frivolous I am
they believe that my art can make a difference

Flour from the house we live in, Eve & I
belonging to friends who are on the road.
We make a mess, we prep, we pre-heat the oven;
a girlfriend arrives with wine
I read the recipe, Eve stirs and Margaret pours refills
I am foggy with sadness and yet I am full of joy.
And when the cake comes out of the oven I recognize the taste:
sweet, dark, earthy-rich.
My life tastes like this.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss
the idea of you.
But truth is, I have friends to laugh and cry with
and love will come.
This much I am learning:
Old hurts are patched over by new ones
New ones are made bearable by
good friends
red wine
and chocolate beet cake.

I get up in the morning and walk Bosco the dog, whom I'm dog-sitting while his owner is out of town, running a race in Alberta. Our walk takes us through the Meadow, so that the dog can run around off-leash and I can follow behind him, or ahead of him while he side-tracks in the bush. Then I hear the slappity-slap of little dog feet and he is hurtling towards me, mouth open and tongue flopping as he dashes to catch up.

Sunday morning we sketch a big loop around and through town, ending at the farmers' market where I tie Bosco up out of food's way and discover that The Bread Peddler (AKA Kate and Tim from up the road) has baked ginger-chocolate scones. I buy one and munch it, the chocolate chips liquid and melting, fresh from the oven.

Tuesday I hike with Stan and Graeme up up up to Groundhog Lake. We walk though Barkerville so early that the draft horses are still running loose along the road. The cloud cover is low, and as we get up to 5700 feet the treetops are so dusted with frost that it looks as though all colour is being leached out of the world. The lake is in a bowl; on one side is a public-use cabin and on the other side Mount Agnes rises in a ragged rocky curve. Today we can't see the summit but it's still spectacular.

Today we do our show for three friends who are leaving us after working with us all summer. Two of them are my best girl friends and I can't even imagine how it's going to be up here without them.  They clap, they giggle, they cheer, they galvanize the rest of the audience and us and we do one of the best shows we've done in a long while.

Movie nights with pickles-and-cheese. Family dinners before people start leaving. A new home to house-sit. Playing music at the Bear's Paw tonight to a packed house. September I write my love letter to this place while the days tick by and life gets ready to change again.

Discombobulation

The end of the main season always gets to me.

The weather and the leaves are changing faster than you can say fall in the mountains.

Friends are leaving; staff is being reduced to a skeleton crew all over town. There are parties, too many drinks, and tearful goodbyes.

On top of this, I have had a whirlwind week, riding some incredible emotional highs as I celebrated my birthday and had a lot of fun (maybe a little too much fun) with my friends and co-workers.

We have also had an extremely intense month at the theatre: someone left the company in early August, was replaced by another performer, we rehearsed like mad; then someone else got sick so we had to re-jig everything again; then again as they recovered and got worked back into the show. We had to plaster cheat sheets all over the stage and wings just so we could remember the show order(s). It made us a very tight little unit, very close, with a ton of laughs, and the kind of intense friendships that are formed in the face of adversity. This weekend we had to say goodbye to 3 of those people, as their contracts don't last to the end of September.

We get 2 days off after Labour Day- I went north to the nearest big city, to spend way too much of my hard-earned paycheque on new clothes and unhealthy food. My stomach feels yucky from over-indulgence. My heart is sad. The big city was ugly and rainy. I tried to have a good time, and I was glad I'd gone- in a way- because I needed a change of scene, but all I wanted was to be home.

And now I am. Home in this tiny town with my new clothes and some new books, getting ready to adjust to the shoulder season. There is a lot of fun to be had in the fall, and I look forward to the weeks ahead, but this weekend always gets to me, every single year.

A New Year

I think this picture captures last night's party perfectly. Cake and laughter.
It's dark because we were all around the campfire in our backyard; the rain held off (more or less) and everyone I love best in this place came to spend my birthday party with me. My heart is full.
What made it even more special is that it was such a challenging day and we were all exhausted by the time we got home. My room mates and I stared blankly at the walls or napped before guests started to arrive. We were so drained I thought the party would be a total bust.
It had started the night before with the last cabaret of the season. I performed; I drank well-but not wisely- and stayed out too late. I got up yesterday morning determined to go running with a girlfriend even though I was hungover and had had about 5 hours' sleep.
Soon after the run, a phone call from work. A cast member was too ill to perform. Heading in to hospital with the boss. We had to go in to Barkerville, re-plot the show and do it with one less performer. Nervous and grumpy, we ran through the variety show figuring out who would sing what, who would say what to cover her absence. In the dressing room I cried from pure nerves, angry with myself for being underslept and hungover, knowing my voice was not at its best.
And then... the magic you always hope for as a performer. An electric show that crackled with the energy we were all putting out. A wonderful audience. A voice that held up, even though it was tired. An exhilarated, giggly lunch together afterwards. Then home, rest, rallying, fire-making, friends, and another late night/early morning bedtime that was sooooo worth it, spent with friends old and new.
I can't say enough how grateful and amazed I am that I have so many people in my life to love me, celebrate my quirks, comfort me when I'm down, laugh hysterically with me, and make me feel like a million bucks. All I can say is that everyone should be lucky enough to find their tribe. I have tribes in both the places I call home, and that has made a world of difference.
Here comes a new decade. I can honestly say that I am thinner, healthier, wiser, and way happier than I was last year. If that isn't a good way to start your forties then I don't know what is.

Painted by a new friend of mine, signed on the back by a whole bunch of lovely people. Happy happy. 

laughter

This has been a week of laughter, which is a pretty great epitaph for the week that was.
Laughter that has had me doubled over, or bellowing with it, head thrown back, or breaking into giggles at the best/worst times during rehearsals.
Part of it is stress, because at a time when we're usually doing our parts by rote we've been thrown back  into creation and rehearsal again. So by the end of the day we're tired and exhilarated and so wound up that we're manic. Three of us showed up at the taco stand for dinner last night and I think our friend Mark thought we were on crack.
Part of it is relief because the atmosphere at work is so much lighter, which is something I didn't realize until things changed.
Part of it is because this is the time of summer when friendships have fully ripened, and we have a particularly great group of friends this year. A really good gang of people to play with.
And part of it is the good weather, which continues to shower us with heat and sunlight when we are more used to... well, the other kind of showers.
The four of us who live together up here rented a cabin at the lake and spent 2 nights there this week after 3 long days of rehearsals. Friends came up and visited. We swam all day, when we weren't eating or playing cards or lying on a paddleboard reading on the lake (my favorite). We floated downriver, got out, and did it again. I had my bathing suit on all day. I still can't believe how much fun we had and how much we needed that break.
Three shows today, and a sick cast member to boot, and we still laughed a lot. Our new cast member is talented, funny, and gives as good as he gets when it comes to jokes and teasing. He is also an appreciator of women, which after a long summer of pretty much zero attention from anyone is slightly dizzying and very fun. We are all more generous onstage than we were.
This morning I lay in bed early in the morning and listened to rain pounding on our metal roof (a rare break from the heat and sunshine) and felt cozy and lucky all over.
In a few more weeks I will be forty. I am in a frame of mind these days where that feels like a promise and a beginning rather than a curse.

Snapshot

Today was an unexpected day off (don't ask).

The sun was shining and the air was warm. You learn not to take that for granted around here, especially by August.

I had to play the organ for a Masonic church service (again, don't ask). After that, the day was my own.  I possess the kind of personality that feels guilty when I'm inside and it's a sunny day. My 21-year-old roomie was perfectly content playing video games on the couch, and he'd certainly earned the right to do so. I got on my bike and rode. It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment thing. I hadn't eaten, I forgot sunscreen and water and all that good stuff. A stop off at the taco stand took care of the no-breakfast thing. Then I hit the road.

Past the dump, past the gravel pit, past Manmade Lake. Up, up, up Devil's Canyon, black rocks and scorched-looking trees looming above. Two tiny lakes at the top, one on each side. Put my foot into one: primordial sludge sucks at me and makes me reconsider. Whiz back down the canyon and stop at Manmade Lake: stash my bike and find the perfect spot to swim, then bike home, soaking wet and bone-deep content.

I glance in the mirror: tanned face, huge eyes, lake-messy hair. A better testament to this surprising and perfect day off than any photo I could have taken.

Blue Day.

“Fear is the original sin. Almost all of the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something.It is a cold slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

A note from a new acquaintance stuns me out of my usual selfishness: I am blessed to have been able to get to know you guys a bit... She was a shy girl who hung around with us for a few days during ArtsWells and then abruptly left her job because she and her boss didn't get along... I thought she was young for her age and a bit of a pill; she found beautiful things to say about each one of us (me and my 3 roommates) in this note she left us. I am humbled and schooled. I try to be a nicer person. It doesn't always work out. But I try.

This is our Monday and people are at daggers drawn (what a great expression) at work. Tension, drama. I keep my head down and get through the day. I visit a friend where he works; I relax and we chat and laugh but later I recall L.M. Montgomery's wonderful quote about fear. I am so fearful sometimes. I can't say what's in my heart and it becomes this big thing that I can't shrug off. I cycle home feeling sad about my shitty day at work and my fears which stifle some of the things I need to say.

I watch some documentary shorts at a film festival in town. God, why are they all so damn depressing? There's an 81/2 minute doc about a man who's friends with a spoon. His family have rejected him for this and in the end he takes meds so he can stop being friends with the spoon and go to his son's wedding as a "normal" person.  A few tears trickle out. God, it's just a spoon. Why can't they accept him as he is? Then there's a documentary about a residential school survivor... the tears start to flow for reals. By intermission my eyes are red and swollen. Several of the docs were shot in east Vancouver and I'm surprised by how homesick that makes me feel. We walk home and autumn's chill bites at us in our thin sweaters. Is it that time already? Yes it is, up here where summer is short at best.

It's a blue day, for sure. We had an amazing day off yesterday, which makes today's sadnesses bearable, because I know how much fun can be had here too. Yesterday a gang of us went to the lake and paddled and swam and snacked and laughed and it was perfection, which is what the lake always is for me. Sun on my skin and lakewater in my hair and good friends to share it all with. So I know there will be more of that, and more great days of work, too.

My day off is being rained out, but the sound of the downpour on my metal roof makes it okay. It is the most cozy sound, especially when you're in your pyjamas and a too-large cashmere sweater, with nothing more pressing to do than eat breakfast and write stuff.
These are active days. I bike to work, I run, I work out. My roommates and I are starting a 30-day challenge to give up some bad stuff so I skip desserts again and I have a tan from paddleboarding and mostly I feel wonderful.
Girlfriends abound. My boss' 11-year-old granddaughter joins us for a week and soon she is practically running the theatre, at least in her mind. She takes tickets, does our show makeup, hangs out with Tanya in the booth, brings us pretty stones with personalized letters for each one: I chose this rock because it reminds me of you, good and kind. We have her over for tacos and a movie and she is giddy with the joys of spending a night with the grown-up ladies. We are all giddy with too much sugar and too much "Frozen" and we skip down the street singing LET IT GO, LET IT GOOOO at the tops of our voices.

Annabelle made me up to look like Elsa from "Frozen". It involved a lot of blue eye makeup.

I call two girlfriends who live far away, trying to imagine their lives in Whitehorse and Elkford. We talk music and marriage and I long to see them one day but money is always so tight.  I bond with the two girlfriends that I live with and we stay up late into the night talking about work and life and love, always love. I really like him but he doesn't like me. If someone told you that they had a crush on you would you be flattered or dismayed? Should I do something or just wait and see? Eleven or Twenty-Nine or Almost-Forty: some things are unchanging. 

One day this week I get really tired and therefore grouchy and I worry about the future again. This feels like limbo, I tell a friend. I love you guys and I love what I do here but is this real life? Living in a dilapidated cabin with three other people in a town of less than 300, dressing up for a living? The next day I am less tired and I think It doesn't matter if it's real life. It's MY life. I might not do it for ever, but right now it's okay, It's more than okay.

Two Days.

Two days. Two days away from work. The only 2-day 'weekend' we have until September.
We could not have been luckier with the weather...

At Bowron Lake

...And I could not be luckier to have friends who are willing to drive me around to various adventures. My goal was to spend as much time as possible on, near or in some water. I got my wish. I asked a certain someone to take me paddleboarding. He complied. I swallowed any thoughts of what if, or I want, or if only, and I had a great time. Paddling. Swimming. Hangin' out.

Then I spent the rest of the day with my 2 best girlfriends up here, doing much of the same at a different lake. There were even more paddleboards to rent! I could get addicted. 

Today's schedule included a 5k run with another girlfriend, a massage, and an afternoon ATV-ing and swimming in the Cottonwood River. This water-baby got her fix at last! I did everything I wanted to do this weekend and more. Lucky girl. 

The weekend is over far too quickly. We're back to work tomorrow, and now that the wind has died down the smoke from not-too-distant forest fires is hazing the skies. It's supposed to get hotter. But my skin is browner, my muscles are pleasantly sore, and my batteries are recharged. Sweet summer. 

21-Year-Old Wisdom.

Last night, after work, we have a friend over to watch movies and eat snacks with us. A typical lazy night, except that this is a particular friend: someone I've had a gigantic crush on for years every time I come up here.
And it is so so lovely: I play him a new tune, we all laugh our heads off at the movies, he and I sit together in the growing dark on the same couch for about 3 hours, we walk some of the way home together (I'm house-sitting), and never do we run out of things to talk about because we never do. Even though we do nothing at the end of our walk together but say "good night" and walk away I am in a daze afterwards, like someone who's drunk too much champagne.
But when I'm back in the Panabode kitchen talking to my best friend about him this morning and I say half-joking, "I wish I didn't have such a crush on him," she replies kindly "I wish you didn't either. Because he's a really nice guy and he's fun to hang out with, but I was watching his body language with you and I don't think he's interested." And the truth that was floating around my head in a big ugly bubble pops with an ugly splat and tears spring into my eyes. "It's okay, we'll wear him down, we'll keep inviting him over..." my friend says, still so kind, and I say sadly "I don't want to wear anyone down" and then although I try to stop them, the tears come for real.
This is the same friend who held me and comforted me and talked me through a horribly stressful breakup last summer and I know she loves me and wishes me nothing but happiness and love, fluffy kittens and unicorns; I know that she is fiercely sad on my behalf: why wouldn't he like you, he's crazy not to! I also know that she is not the Oracle and that she may be wrong, but my instincts tell me that, at least for now, she is rightrightright and it hurts, just like it hurts every time. The only things that make it better are the old standbys Age and Experience, who tell me to suck it up, enjoy my friends who love me in spite of my faults, enjoy my work, which is basically getting paid to sing and be a goofball, enjoy my health and strength; enjoy this moment and the moment after it and keep breathing and sleeping well and distracting myself until the pain of not being noticed, of not being visible to someone, dies down again.  And even shittier is having to distance myself from someone I really genuinely like and love to talk to, an intoxicating (to me) combination of smart and silly, all because I can't just be happy with friends instead of lovers.
My 21-year-old roommate is far wiser than me. "Stop having so many expectations," he counsels the lovelorn ladies of the Panabode, we who variously mourn our limited prospects in this small town. He already knows more than us: that it's best to accept whatever happens; that if you want too much you run the risk of losing it all. He isn't the first person to tell me this; the last one was my latest ex, as he and I watched our fragile relationship drown under the weight of all those expectations I had.
So, I guess I stop trying. It's not possible to turn off the wanting, but it is possible to stop banging my head against this particular brick wall over and over again. My young friend recently stopped a long-distance (and very new and uncertain) relationship because he was finding that the constant pining for something he couldn't have was preventing him from enjoying the experience of being here. If he's smart enough to focus on the here and now, I hope I can be too. I'll sleep long and well tonight, wake up feeling more like myself tomorrow. I'll take the pain of not being special to someone, and put it into our afternoon show, into a character who knows that all too well. And I'll keep finding the joy in everything I do, because to do otherwise would be to give away my power.

Recharging

This morning I started the day off with a massage with Kate, who lives just down the road. She and her husband are building a bakery, and her strong hands are good at kneading people and dough. I told her that my neck and shoulders felt tight and that I'd been getting a headachy feeling lately, which is unusual for me. She laughed when she started running her hands over my back. "Your shoulders are up around your ears!" she said. "Let's see if I can give you a longer neck by the time we're done." 

Weeks of playing the accordion (a heavy, unbalanced instrument), of manhandling the double bass and of huge, full-body singing (in a tight corset, no less), not to mention hours of rehearsals on top of performances, are taking their toll. Surrounded by intensity at work I try to be the one who plays it cool, so I store up tension in my neck and shoulders until my head aches. I run, I bike, I walk, but I don't stretch enough. My body is an elastic band, pulled taut. 

Last night I went to the pub with T, our stage manager. Both of us fighting the urge to simply stay in, to lie like puppies on the couch until we stumbled off to bed. It was worth going- a folk club from Prince George was in town for their annual gathering, and we laughed and sang and danced with locals and folkies alike and then felt we'd earned the right to flop on the couch and watch American Horror Story (a house addiction) until after midnight. 

Today I feel burnt out and weak. I am lying on the couch with a warm Magic Bag around my neck while G plays a video game, building empires, fighting wars. T is doing some lighting work at the theatre and W is home in Cottonwood with her husband for the day off. In a way I feel like a wimp for being so drained. I don't have kids, my work is fun, if intense, I am earning enough money and I love the people I'm with. But my body needs some time off. It's days like this, with the rain pounding down, that I wish I could curl up in bed with someone and… well. Instead the best I can do is keep myself away from the sugary snacks in the house, renew my acquaintance with the couch, outlast this nagging headache and maybe brave the rain for a quick walk. 

The Rhythm.

Every year I describe my summer job to people. And every year I tell them: "I have to live in a run-down old house with the same people I work with. It's a bit like a reality tv show sometimes. It's kinda nuts."
But the truth is, that's an exaggeration. It's not usually nuts, except in a good way. Like when your roommate speaks in a ridiculously bad English accent and you all break up giggling because it never gets old. Or when you turn up the volume on a cheesy Katy Perry song on the way to work in your stage manager's car and later you sing bits of it while dressed in a 19th-century costume. Or when you all rush outside the house because there is an ADORABLE  Grizzly bear cub across the road and even though you all know it's a terrible idea to get anywhere near a bear cub, you all have to see the baby close-up. * And then your roommate sneaks up behind you and snarls and you let out a huge scream because you thought it was Mama Bear.
There are two 20-somethings and two late-30-somethings; three girls and one boy, and we all snuggle up in the evening and crochet or play video games and watch "American Horror Story" or some super-hero action movie and laugh a lot and cook dinners together and do the Kitchen Dance as we all try to fit ourselves around each other at the same time.
Sometimes you all have a Junk Food Day on your day off, and you eat ridiculous amounts of sugar (even though some of you are trying really hard not to consume that sort of thing). You might even make Orangette's Chocolate Banana Bread recipe, if you want to make your roommates love you. It's loaded with sugar, cinnamon and chocolate chips as well as three bananas, and it won't last long:

It's the rhythm of my days with these folks that make life up here so sweet. In past years there has been more drama, but even when things were difficult or tense, we found some kind of rhythm together. It could be the hardest part of this contract, living for 5 months with the same people you see all day at work, and every year I'm amazed by how it's actually the best part. 

* This is a terrible idea! We only went outside to see the baby bear because there was no sign of the mother and as time went by it became apparent that for some reason she had become separated from her baby and was nowhere nearby. Don't ever do this. 

Why I Came.

Why I come:

The dark, wood walls of this tumbledown house (now with waxed floors! A properly-vented dryer!  And-wonder of wonders- internet!).
The three other people here in this house with me, my co-workers, my friends, my family for the next five months.
A glimpse of grizzly bears running across the highway in front of our car today, scary and majestic.
The theatre, with all of its dust and paint and mouse droppings and beautiful acoustics and wood.

Rollin' On

Every spring I write a wistful post about leaving Vancouver in all its warm and sunny glory. This year is no exception.
I walk down south Fraser Street yesterday afternoon inhaling the smell of blossoms, of food; hearing different languages and accents. My life (and diet) is a lot less Asian up North: no Thai, no Japanese, no Vietnamese, only excellent (but very expensive) Chinese food.
I am packing today. My life: compressed into 2 cardboard boxes, a suitcase, an accordion case.

I go on my annual 7-hour urban hike with a friend and the day couldn't be finer. Seven hours of beach, river, railway, sun, wind... We end the hike footsore and sunburned, but triumphant. 

The little cat climbs into my open suitcase, my chest of drawers, my closet. By the time I get back she will be fully-grown. I'll miss her wide eyes, her huge purrs, her playfulness. My brother and his wife will have their house to themselves again for five months. They have been excellent roommates, but so are the ones I live with in the summer. 

This pattern has been part of my life for four years now. 

There are no goodbyes, only "see-you-laters".

Been kickin' sawdust In these clothes

For a blue moon And a red nose

The boys will put 'em up And tear 'em down
We'll wash away The dirt
Just a glass a day Ain't gonna hurt
Pretty soon we'll move on Out of town

We pass them by Across the plains
We don't even try To catch the names
It's supper-time and their kids Are home from school
They draw the shades On their shops
While we go a'checking Through the props 
And putting on the paint To play the fool

Then we're rollin' on
Rollin' on
Feeling, better Than we did last night
Rollin' on rollin' on
It's hard some times Pretty much it's alright

I'll go soft shoe When it rains
I'll go shuffle through The aches and pains
Mr. young at heart That's what I try to be
They all laugh And cry
They get to feeling better And that is why
If it was good for you Truly it was good for me

Then we're rollin' on
Rollin' on
Feeling, better Than we did last night
Rollin' on rollin' on
It's hard some times Pretty much it's alright


-Mark Knopfler, "Rollin' On"

Let the (Beet) Chips Fall Where They May

Oh, hi there. Do you want to know where I am?

That's probably a good hint. Yeah, I didn't go back south for school. The person who was going to replace me couldn't make it, for various reasons. I didn't really want to go to school and the one course I'd signed up for put me on a waitlist I couldn't seem to get off of. The theatre company couldn't be happier that I was able to stay. I couldn't be happier to still be here. Win-win. This is one of the reasons why I'm happy to be here:

Meet Jack the Cat.

I am house-sitting again. House Number 4 this summer. Suddenly everyone's decided that I'm reliable (hah!) and I get to drift from one beautiful, funky pad to the next. It gets me out of the somewhat, erm, shabby rental accommodation that I'd otherwise be in, and although I love my roomies there, it's bliss to be on my own for a bit. Hey, I went from a 14-year relationship to living with 2 (very messy) room mates in Vancouver, to constantly sharing a house with 3 or 4 other people up here. It's high time for some alone time, if you ask me.

"Who sez you're alone?!"

We also ended our main season at work, which means that I get 2 days of this week (!!!), and only have to do one show a day except for Saturdays. I did the Shoulder Season (as they call it) 2 years ago and it was wonderful. Gorgeous weather, light schedule, less staff which means that those who stay get very close. I love it. Plenty of time to go on excursions, hang out with friends. And oh yeah, cook.

It's Zucchini Season around here, which means that everyone is in a flat panic. Even folks who love 'em get overwhelmed. Me? I hate them, always have. Memories of grilled zucchini with parmesan cheese can still make me want to gag. So why do I have not one, but three Sugar-Free Zucchini-Banana Loaves baking as I type this, filling the ground floor with their heady scent? Well, because the lady I'm house-sitting for gets a veggie box, as many do around here. And in the veggie box are beets (yum!), cabbage (yum!), corn (double yum!) and... you guessed it. Hence the loaves, the only way I can stomach squash. And the sugar-free part? Well...

Last week I had a birthday. I can't believe it was only a week ago, because it feels as if so many things have happened since then, but it was. I celebrated in a very low-key style this year, involving some close friends, The Dark Knight Rises, and Caramel Bacon Popcorn. (I wasn't sugar-free way back then in August.) I'm working on a list of 40 things to do before I turn forty next summer, and one of the things was to try and go dessert-and-alcohol-free for September. Sugar-Free September has kind of a nice ring to it, don't ya think? So the zucchini had to be used up, but the loaves had to be sugar-free. I found this recipe online, a great way to use up old bananas and the ever-present zucchini.  I made one loaf yesterday, and found that while I didn't really miss the sweetness, there was something... lacking. Today I put in the allspice, which I'd been missing yesterday, and added more applesauce, more banana, and an egg. Much better. Now the oven's heating up to 400 for Beet Chips.

With all this cooking, it's a good thing I'm getting out for some exercise! I ran 10k last Friday, and while it was great, the running I've been doing this summer has done a number on my poor feet. Plantar Faciitis, in both feet, especially the left one. So it's back to biking, at least for a while. Yesterday I biked 30k along a gorgeous, remote road that would have had my Ursa-phobic mother in fits. Luckily for me, no bears were spotted; the biggest wildlife I saw was a bevy of beautiful butterflies.

Today is for cooking. And sloth, something that a cat can always teach you about. Happy Fall!

growth.

It's House music and pre-dinner lollipops. The nights are getting longer and colder, but the greenhouse bursts with life: dark-leafed Basil, sweet peas in pods, the carrots- oh, the carrots! Every time I bite into one I think this tastes like grace and I don't quite know what that even means except that they are so full of life and sweetness. My foot is sore all the time and it's the end-of-the-season doubt and uncertainty mixed with boredom and routine but I run once a week and hobble afterward and there are still moments of humour and fun and joy at work, lots of moments. It's taken a while to find that joy.

See, there was love once, and then we broke it and it sucked. We had to learn to live together and work together far away from home and a lot of the time in the first couple of months I thought that I was living through the heaviest kind of karmic retribution for all the shitty things I did to get this love in the first place. There were a lot of tears. The kind you cry alone in your room until you're not even sure you can stop anymore. Puffy face and sore red eyes. Even then, joy and laughter in friendships, in rehearsals, in performance, but also this lurking sadness which would break into full-fledged misery quite a lot. But it got better, slowly. The other night I made dinner in the beautiful home where I am currently a house-sitter (trying not to break the dishwasher and keep the floors clean and the herbs harvested) and we ate together and watched a movie and then we hugged goodnight and he rode home on his bike and it was totally okay. Completely. Today someone took me to lunch (I am so blessed with new friends this year!) and then I was able to make one of my cast-members laugh a little bit in the four o'clock show and the sore foot and the end-of-the-season doubt didn't matter one little bit.

I am crocheting a shawl right now. Sometimes on stage, where a little bit gets done every day, but mostly backstage and at home. It was going to be a pointy triangular shawl but I started it very wide and didn't taper it enough so now it's a wrap and it will be done when I decide it's done and not necessarily when it comes to a point. It may not be exactly what I planned but it will make me happy and look good and I will have learned some things by the end of it. Which is kind of a metaphor for this summer of heartbreak and renewal, if I wanted to get precious about things.

running.

Today I will leave this room where I rehearsed the play we are now performing twice a day, and I will run.
 I will run out of town, past the remnants of the Island Mountain Mine, which I have climbed up to and explored, photographing twisted rails and tailings and spooky, boarded-up entrances. Cariboo Gold Quartz Mine is on my left. I have climbed those tailings piles too, every year. Once, as I sat and looked out over the lake, a young fox joined me for a while, curling up just feet from where I was sitting. It felt like a gift, and I was awed and grateful. I have explored overgrown roads and cement ruins up here. My brother and sister-in-law came with me once, and we shouted "NO BEARS!" every few feet to discourage unwelcome encounters of the furry kind. We found core samples, an old pop bottle, a leaning metal building housing an elevator shaft. We walked up to an old mine shaft and felt its icy breath as we moved closer.
Past the old mines, with Jack o'Clubs Lake to my left. Three years ago I canoed its circumference with my friend Venessa. Two years ago, once here due date had come and gone, we took icy dips in it to encourage her baby to be born, although I joked that once he'd felt how cold the lake was, he'd never want to come out! Last year we jogged where I am jogging now, with baby Alexander in a stroller bouncing along in front of us. This year she and her RCMP husband have moved, and my run is quicker, but lonelier without her.
I keep a sharp eye out for bears. It's Spring, and the mother black bears are feeding, often with roly-poly cubs in tow. My muscles are slowly warming up, my legs aching. Past the Information Centre and the taco stand. Two summers ago, feeling equal parts lonely and liberated after a breakup, I would bike to the taco stand once a week to talk to Mark. Although he must have wondered why I appeared so regularly and stayed so late, he never made me feel unwelcome. These days we see each other on the street in the town where we both work and smile, although we don't talk as much.
I reach my third kilometre, near the far end of the lake and stop briefly before turning around, heading back towards home.Seven kilometres past the town where I live is the town where I work.  The theatre where I have known fatigue and frustration, but also so much love and laughter and applause. I have taken countless bows here, sometimes in front of two people, sometimes two hundred. I cried two years ago when I had to leave suddenly, and while I was away they had a fundraiser for me here and raised hundreds of dollars to help me with expenses. When I came back and took my bow on the night of our opening gala  they cheered and I blew the audience kisses because without even knowing when or why, I had started to feel as if I belonged here.
I look up at the mountain peaks that surround me as I run: Cow Mountain, Mount Murray, Island Mountain, Slide Mountain.  I am still learning to match the right name to the right mountain but I am slowly catching on. Last summer I climbed to the top of Mount Agnes with a friend, glowing with pride that I'd made it to the top of a mountain. Even knowing only a fraction of this area's history, my friend and I could appreciate that we were retracing the footsteps of settlers and gold-diggers a century and a half ago.
These towns are my second home, and the places where I test and find myself every year.
These summers I spend up here are summers of hard work and joy, of new friends and mad crushes and falling in love; crying myself to sleep and waking up with a smile on my face. Of backyard bonfires and 'family dinners' and music festivals and rehearsals and shows, endless amounts of shows. Of wearing old-fashioned dresses and fake curls and real corsets and speaking with Irish and English accents. Of clowning and singing and playing and sleeping and biking and running, always running.

Cookin' Something Up

We’ve been doing a lot of cooking around here. At the Theatre Royal, we’ve been cooking up a show. And at home... well, I’m kind of embarrassed at how much baking I’ve been doing. Completely unprecedented. 

This year, we’ve been cooking (and shopping) communally, which I love. Not only is it cheaper, but there’s something about coming home at 5:30 and making dinner together that helps ease the petty frustrations of our work day. We get our own breakfasts before we run out the door to head to rehearsals and shows, and lunches are pretty much always eaten at the theatre, so dinner is the main event. This year there is a tall twenty year-old in the cast and in my house, so I’m cooking and baking for an appreciative audience. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it so much. 

The first week I was here, I was craving sugar all the time. After a few days I realized that it was because I hadn’t had a drink since I got up here and I’d had an epic (for me) night of drinking the night before I left (making for a blurry and nauseous bus ride the next day, ugh). But I was chomping my way through treats at the general store every day and it was getting unhealthy and expensive. So I figured I might as well start making my own. I started with what was around the house. Orangette had posted a recipe for cream cheese pound cake that sounded simple and tasty, so I made that. Oh, and 3 fruit crumbles (1 for a co-worker who lives down the road, 1 for the theatre, and 1 for the house). A former roommate had left a bag of whole wheat flour so I used that and everything was a little hearty-tasting, but not too bad. The sugar cravings abated somewhat. 

A few days ago I used up the last of a jar of Kraft peanut butter making 9 tasty flourless peanut butter cookies (recipe on the jar). Needless to say, nine cookies lasted all of oh, ten minutes? Yesterday I begged a bag of all-purpose flour from Norma at the general store (she didn’t have any in store but she sold me a bag of her own stuff later). 

Today is our second day off. It’s still early in the season, so we aren’t mixing too much with the other employees in the park, the street interpreters and the like. Rehearsals on top of shows make us too tired to stay up late yet. There is a peaceful quality to our time off because we all just hang around the house in a sleepy way most of the day. The pound cake was almost gone. It was time to get out the baking pans once again. I made Orangette’s French Yoghurt Cake, and also a banana bread. The Yoghurt Cake is cooling on the counter as I write, and I can say that it is simple and delicious, just as the recipe promised, because I didn’t wait ‘til it was cooled before I cut myself a slice. Tangy, moist and lemony. 

The banana bread is just finishing up in the oven and I will be curious as to how it turns out, because I messed with the recipe a bit. Ground almonds subbing for some of the flour, added maple syrup (because why not?) and sour cream (ditto). It may be odd, but it’ll probably taste pretty neat. And if not, I bet there’s a certain twenty year-old roomie who’ll eat it anyway.