Four Things.

1. The heat is on. Finally. I am trying not to let a word of complaint pass my lips, even as I swelter in my 15-pound, made-of-curtain-material costume (I'm not kidding.) Because the sun is glorious. Amazing! We went to the lake yesterday and swam for the first time this summer. The tiny lake which was also the first place I swam last year after my surgery. And the site of many a lovely evening swim/BBQ. And the place where my sweetheart recently told me that he loves me. A perfect place to make new summer memories every year.
2. On a hot day, nothing tastes more refreshing than a Raspberry Vinegar drink from Strouss, conveniently located right across the road from the theatre where I work. If you're like me and don't like your drinks too sweet, try this: pour yourself some raspberry juice, and add a dash of apple cider vinegar. It'll quench your thirst like nothing else.
3. I think the sun has already read my blog and is feeling self-conscious, because it's hiding behind some clouds at the moment. Summer in a high mountain town is an exercise in seizing moments
4. Here's my schedule today: I got up, ran 5km, biked 6.5km to work, did a super high-energy show at 1pm, have another show at 4pm, have a rehearsal after that, and then will bike another 6.5km home tonight. I think I'm turning into a bit of an athlete. And I love it.

How to Enjoy a Cariboo Summer Day

Sun. Summer.
Try not to look over your shoulder at the lurking rain clouds the wind is blowing in...
Hot days here are fleeting and should be savoured.
Smile at the audience as sweat runs down the inside of your costume-
enjoy the fact that there IS an audience, a large one for a change.
Put an extra bit of bounce in your step, more gleam in your smile.
Sing loudly.
Make a dramatic curtsey at the curtain call.
Hug some kids and your best friend outside the theatre while the audience takes photos. 

Get outside for lunch-
Go and sit near the creek and listen to the wind ruffle the firs.
Talk to someone else in costume and love the fact that yours is off and the breeze can reach your legs.

Summer is
an apple's cold crunch against your teeth
a new bicycle waiting for you in the parking lot
rehearsalsrehearsalsrehearsals

Being here is knowing joy, from time to time.

This is what I look like today. 
I have a cold. A cold is such an insignificant virus, and yet it makes life so hard. I want to sleep all the time. I've hardly been on my bicycle in a week. I snuffle and glower and lurch through the day. I save any energy I have for the 2 shows we do daily. 
I am thoroughly grateful that this is happening now, and that I should be getting better by the time we have our gala opening in 5 days. And fully mended by the time my sweetheart arrives in 2 weeks. I am covering myself in oils and ointments from Barkerville's Chinatown, until I smell like a Chinese herbalist's shop; of camphor and mint and eucalyptus. The town cat actually dry-heaved when I petted her today; she hates my smell. I like it, or rather, I would if I could smell it.
There are moments of grace though. We had the day off Sunday and I probably should have slept all day, but instead I went to Barkerville with a co-worker and we did tourist-y things for a few hours. Oh, and I played the church organ for morning service, a ritual I enjoy even if I don't believe in all of it. I bought plants at the town garage sale and went to the place I work even though it was a day off and then we came home and made pasta noodles, from scratch, and ate them- four of us- and there was a lot of laughter and modest amounts of red wine and it was so great to enjoy eating and living with the same people I have to work with all day. It's such a blessing.
I am realizing that I can be a VERY impatient person, and that it can choke me with frustration and rage from time to time, so I am trying to learn to breathe and exercise through this and find some equilibrium. Alone-time helps. Also running and biking (and the occasional glass of red wine).
I am also learning as I get older how much can change in a year and how often I want to say to my year-ago self: Just relax. Focus on all the good things. This too shall pass. One year ago I was newly single and recovering from an operation and I was spinning. Spinning dizzily through change and heartache and freedom and obsession and joy. I don't think I would change too much of that, because it was all useful, but I wish I had been more joyful and less certain that the world would end if someone didn't look at me the right way. 
So one year later, I write a letter to my sweetheart and I say: This is new to me. I'm still learning, but I like it, this romance and writing. I feel like the Victorian miners who 'waited on the mail' and sent letters home to distant lands. Vancouver is my distant land now; we have emails and phone calls to sustain us until this month's end and then we will learn each other all over again. 
And I look at the person who caused me so much heart-searching over the past year and smile politely and try not to plot scenarios where he realizes how wonderful I am and feels like a tool bad person for spurning my advances. Because although exercise and joy and deep breathing all have their place, sometimes there's nothing like making up a good revenge scenario in your head.

I am supposed to be researching right now.
Tiredness pulls me away from should and supposed-to and must
into surfing and blogging and short sweet sexy notes to someone

I rode my bike home today after the perfect end-of-week show
through growling thunder and sunshine both
Went running with friends, baby, dog
into grey skies and ominous rumbles
 the lake steely and flat
and then
full-tilt spring storm unleashing itself
wind brushing water, clouds dropping
HAIL!
So hard we had to crouch behind the stroller to protect ourselves
from the icy stones

Running, biking, performing, rehearsing- I am tired all the time, but
it's a good tired, mostly
Today I wrote: Another day at the office
and that's what it feels like. The new normal: job, room-mates, exercise
Same small town, same faces you smile at as they drive by you

This morning, in the room off the kitchen
where we keep the plastic bags
I see one labelled Personal Belongings and my eyes widen

They gave me that bag last year at the hospital. One year ago yesterday.
Along with disposable underpants, a gown and a few scars
Mostly I don't think about it, about how much changed this time last year
About how it changed so fast
that I brought that hospital bag back to up here with me
and here it still is
And here I am, again. Luckily.

back in the Cariboo

Meet-and-greet party tonight for all the staff of this crazy historical museum/town/archeological site that I work in. I already said my hellos to most of the people I really like up here, but it was nice to go for a bit. I dunno, I don't really do parties very well. A flaw, really. I had a couple cups of wine, said my hellos and skedaddled. I love the possibility of Spring here: who will I party with, who will I get closer to, who will catch my eye... well, no one that way, hopefully. I have to be good. We are all so busy and insular right now, but I know that as summer winds on, new friendships and alliances will form, and the fun lies ahead.
My sweetheart writes to me and his words are balm to my soul. It's lovely having someone to miss. I look forward to showing him my town, and to feeling his arms around me. I write back: long emails. Some of it is stuff I'd normally say here: description, stories of work; some of it is stuff that's only for him.
I try to find words for you, for the internet, for my memories... I love performing. It's good to be here. I think about where I was this time last year and I shake my head. So lucky, so very, very lucky, I am. I am healthy and doing work that I love and as my sweetheart says, it's great to have someone to miss, even if that sucks sometimes.
Last year I came back up here after my surgery and my breakup and all I could find for a while was poetry and photographs, so maybe that's what I'll do again here. Something different from the what-I-did-this-week emails I send my man. I won't abandon this space, that's for sure. We'll see.

leaving: some late-night thoughts

I had a post all ready, about food and the city and some last-minute purchases I made recently. But then I accidentally navigated away from this page and lost it, every last word. I think I could sum it up by saying: Go to the Woodland Smokehouse & Commissary! Eat at Nelson The Seagull! Retro-vintage makeup cases rock!

I am tasting and touching and exploring the city as intensely as possible, knowing that I will be leaving so soon. Gulping food and music and fun before I plunge into rehearsals up north. Vancouver, always pulling me in, making me fall in love again at the last minute.

Last night I played a Flying Folk Army reunion gig, and it was fantastic. I opened for the band with a set of my own material, and finally playing my own songs in front of a crowd of friends was something I've wanted to do for so long. Nerve-racking, but wonderful. And then the sweat and stomp and sheer exuberance of the FFA! To play with five other friends after so many years apart; to share the stage with the man I was with for 14 years; to have my new sweetheart beaming at me from the audience, and another ex backing me up on my own tunes; to see and talk to so many people right before I leave again... it makes my heart full.

Last night after the gig, I barely slept; my sweetheart was restless and the bed felt too small. I wanted our last night in the same bed to be wonderful, and of course fate intervened and somewhere a small, mean god laughed, and by 5am I just wanted to strangle him so I could get some sleep. So I was raw and tired, but we had a great breakfast and I forgot how little sleep I'd had... And then we went to the racetrack, which as I've said before on here can be a wonderful place to spend a sunny day. But there was an accident during race number five. A horse 'broke down' on the backstretch, and suddenly there were riderless horses streaking towards the finish line, and an ambulance streaking down the track, and four jockeys were down. All the joy sucked out of the day, just like that. (The jockeys are all alive, and only one was injured. One of the horses, one I'd bet on, had to be killed.)

I told my sweetheart how much I'd miss him this summer. Tears came very easily, especially after seeing the accident at the track. I will miss him, although I know that it will be a great summer, it always is. It's hard to leave.

I have an audition for school tomorrow. I may not be as prepared as I'd like, but hopefully I'm prepared enough. Cross you fingers for me. And now, to bed.

A bunch of stuff.

Well, we actually had a few days of sun and almost-warmth before the Bad Rain Gods caught up with VanCity again. Most notably, the rain was absent for much of my friend Gill's visit last week. Gill was my friend (and awesome roomie) many years ago, when I was fresh-outta-my-mom's-house and hanging out saucer-eyed at Bard on the Beach, falling in luuurve with cute actor boys. For a while, she lived in the basement of a giant house in Kits and I lived in the front half of the top floor. God, I haven't even thought about those times in ages. It was awesome.
We didn't do too much reminiscing this time around, because we were busy enjoying her little girl, Dani. (Who says things like "I'm writing a story. It's called The Lonely Towel" in an incredibly cute British accent.) I am constantly amazed at how we can pick up with old friends as if we've never left off. I just did it again tonight with my friend Andrea, who was my kindred-spirit buddy when we were kids in Toronto. (and another awesome roomie here in Vancouver, years later) I guess it means that I chose my friends wisely as a kid, and that the true cream-of-the-crop friends will stick around through the years and absences and life changes. Lucky me.
So what else has been going on lately, besides winning big money at the races? and seeing my BFFs? Well, I'm auditioning for school in a couple of weeks, so I enlisted my friends Steve and Dave to record some guitar tracks to sing along to. I love those guys and they did a great job. I may not get into school, but the staff will be all: "who were those great guitar players you were warbling along to?"
Also, this is happening. This may seems like a little gig, but this is big for me. Life-list big. Not only reuniting with some of my best buddies (and my ex, in fact) and playing some of our old stuff, but doing an opening set of my own stuff.
And then it's back up to my summer home for 4 months. So of course I am getting the pangs I always get this time of year, the pangs that remind me how much I'll miss VanCity in the summer. Sun. Ocean. Music. Patios. Free time. Not to mention shitty work prospects and boredom and aimlessness, but still. I know that once I get Up There I will snap into work mode and everything will be good. But it IS hard leaving this city for its finest seasons, however much I may bitch about it here from time to time. The rip and tear of having your heart (and work) in two places, I guess.