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. 

Roadtrip

A conversation then ensued, on not unfamiliar lines. Miss Bartlett was, after all, a wee bit tired, and thought they had better spend the morning settling in; unless Lucy would at all like to go out? Lucy would rather like to go out, as it was her first day in Florence, but, of course, she could go alone. Miss Bartlett could not allow this. Of course she would accompany Lucy everywhere. Oh, certainly not; Lucy would stop with her cousin. Oh, no! that would never do. Oh, yes! 

-E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

There was a moment, while I was unpacking my things in the hotel room that first night, that I had a twinge. Here we were, two related, unmarried spinster ladies brushing our teeth and folding our underwear; already tired at 8pm! I was holidaying with my mom: how un-cool! Would this trip be a disaster? Then I shook it off. My mom is no Cousin Charlotte and I am no Lucy Honeychurch (in more ways than one since I am far too old for one thing). This roadtrip was a chance to spend some time together before I vanished up north for the summer. I chose Seattle because it is in another country and therefore exotic, but it is less than 3 hours' drive away and therefore easy to get to.

Oh Seattle! Being there is like being in an alternate-universe Vancouver: there is a market, and an ocean view, and mountains, and delicious restaurants... they are so alike, and yet there are differences too. More brick buildings (a shame if The Big One hits Seattle, but so lovely in the meantime). More visible history. Less soul-destroyingly boring condos. Better liquor laws. Neighbourhoods that feel vibrant and funky and have managed to keep Big Business at bay. I was trying to quantify the different vibe but all I could come up with was that people in Seattle seem to have a true appreciation for the finer things in life: food is crafted with care, cafes are lovingly decorated, buildings are painted inside and out, communities are cherished and nurtured, the arts are supported. I know that I am seeing it through the rose-coloured lenses of a quick pleasure trip, but that's how it feels to me.

Anyway, the two spinster ladies got along famously, and if we did have an alarmingly uncool tendency to fall asleep around 10pm clutching English mystery novels... well, we had an excuse: we walked between four and six hours a day. And Seattle is not a flat city. I had a little guidebook which suggested various neighbourhoods we should visit, and every day we picked a few and trekked around them. I think we basically did a marathon, but we stretched it over 3-and-a-1/2 days with lots of food stops. My mom is the kind of person who looks as if a good wind might topple her, but I mapped one of our days of walking and it was over 10k. She is also totally game for trying out my vague suggestions: "I remember eating breakfast about 7 years ago at this great little Mexican place in Beacon Hill- I think it's the one that's mentioned in this newspaper. Can we try and find it?" "I think there's a park at the end of this road. Can we check it out?" "I read about this play that's about Scottish soldiers in Iraq. Shall we see it?" And she'd smile and nod, and off we'd head to Beacon Hill/Golden Gardens Park/the Paramount Theatre.

We also stopped in at Delancy and Essex, which I'd read about here. In fact, we bookended our trip with 2 visits there, because: succulent pizza! Seductive cocktails! Little cauliflour-and-pine nut-toasts! Lovely ambience! and the second time we met Molly Wizenberg, who owns both places with her husband. It's a little bit weird, meeting someone whose blog (and book) you've read, because you feel like I know all this stuff about you and yet of course, you don't really know them at all. But she was very sweet, and it's nice to know that down south in Alternate-Universe-Vancouver there is a little pizza place and cocktail bar that is just as lovely in real life as it sounds in print.

The elegant Essex.

My hands-down fave community in Seattle is Ballard, and I like to think there's an Alternate Universe Alison who's just opening a little bar or bookstore there (okay, enough with the alternate universe stuff, it's getting a bit creepy).

This? Oh, just one of the many reasons I didn't lose weight in Seattle.

I like to think I know a little bit more about Seattle now, and I certainly know enough to want to go back, and soon. 

Golden Gardens Park, Ballard.

It's funny, finishing this post now, because I'm back up north, have been since Saturday. When you travel very quickly from one place to another, totally different place, time has a funny way of playing tricks on you. I was still in Seattle this time last week, but it seems like a small lifetime ago. I got home from the States, finished packing and moving out, crashed with my long-suffering mom for 2 nights, got epically drunk with my brother, took the Greyhound early Saturday morning (still dizzy and nauseous from the cocktails), and... arrived. I'm cat-and house-sitting for friends this week, which means I have cushy digs all to myself for a while. I've been unpacking, catching up with friends, enjoying the unseasonal warmth, and getting more exercise in a few days than I ever get in Vancouver. Work starts tomorrow. I look out at the mountains and the bog, and marvel that I was somewhere so different just a week ago. 

Baby Steps

It's been a banner week for health: On Sunday I ran ten kilometres with my brother and sister-in-law in the Vancouver Sun Run! I managed to do it in an hour and four minutes- not bad for someone who literally hasn't run in months (I can't actually even remember the last time I ran before the Sun Run, so I was amazed that I not only ran it, but didn't have to walk once.)
Here's a picture of me running the race.

I'm on the left in the grey. I look fierce.

I actually beat my family, although to be fair, I only beat my brother because he is chivalrous, and ran the whole way with his wife. They crossed the finish line holding hands. Me, I'm pretty competitive when I run. So I steamed away as we crossed the start line, and met up with them after the race. I know, I'm klassy that way.

I also did my weekly workout with Leslie and walked part of the seawall with a girlfriend. But today.

Today was a new exercise in crazy personal best. 

My buddy Ari convinced me to walk from his house in Kits all the way to New Westminster. I knew it would be a long walk, but even I quailed a bit when he told me "it'll take about 8 hours." That's a full day's commitment. But it's my habit this time of year to enjoy my city as much as possible before I leave it for the summer. Plus I wanted to see if I was capable of an 8-hour walk. So I agreed, and at just after 9am this morning, we set off. There were train tracks:

Flowers:

Hi-jinks:

River vistas...

...and at the end, there was Barbeque:

Nothing has ever tasted so good. Sitting down has never felt so incredible. MapMyRun clocks our trek at about 28 kilometres. I am very proud. And sore.

All this has been great because there have been some difficult things in my life lately and I haven't been handling them as well as I could have. But getting outside or working out has made a huge difference not only in how I feel about myself but also in how I react to negative situations or people. Just like performing, exercise throws you a whole bunch of endorphins, so the this winter's blues and bad moods haven't made a comeback because I am active. The sunshine helps a lot too. I find self-help books and trite daily 'meditations' incredibly patronizing and annoying, but a daily "sweat meditation" can bring new clarity and peace of mind to even the most fraught situation. Every mile run, every sunny-day walk, every weight I lift brings me a little bit closer to inner peace.

Not to mention that they can help you squeeze into a tight costume. 

Some stream-of-conciousness for your Friday afternoon.

My new roommate says goodbye on his way out the door. It may or may not be worth mentioning that he is wearing stilts made to look like goat legs, horns, a wolf-pelt cape, and carrying a set of bagpipes. With the stilts on he is seven-and-a-half feet tall. Watching people react as he walks across the road and wait for the bus is always fun.  The other night we watched "Django" together in the living room. This is worth mentioning because until I launched a full-on cleaning assault on the living room, it was only barely a room, and didn't fit the definition of "livable".

One roommate is still in the hospital; the new one moves in and now the living room is clean and sports a workstation where the new guy builds MIDI bagpipes, outrageous costumes, flame-shooting metal flowers to mount on his bagpipe drones. If this was a story, you'd accuse me of inventing a household that was too quirky to be believable: the stilt-walking piper, the eternally perky actress, the depressive who lives in his own garbage. And me. Oh, and the mice.

Yeah, the mice. I was watching "Community" in the sitting room the other night when a shadow scuttled by the chair opposite me. No part of me wanted to investigate further. I closed my laptop, turned off the lights and retreated to my bedroom. My mattress lies right on the floor; you can guess how well I slept that night. Hence the cleaning assault. Also the shameful part of me that wishes that the dirty roommate stays in hospital longer. Because when he gets out we have to have A Talk. And I hate confrontation.

"Do you want to go and have a drink?"
The words out of my mouth before I can check myself, made bold by wine and a relaxing evening playing music with friends. He agrees, and we walk towards my place, end up at a hotel bar where we talk and drink until closing times kicks us out a few hours later.
Waiting for the bus in the rain I say hesitantly "I'm glad we can hang out together like this. I know I can never undo what I did to you but I'm so glad we can be friends." He agrees. We begin to talk, for the first time, about how it was to leave each other, how it was good and bad and pain and freedom all mixed together for both of us, how the years have been since it happened. We wave one late-night bus by, then another. Finally we decide to get in out of the rain and continue talking at my place until almost three in the morning. Some serious stuff but a lot of just catching up, too. Two friends, filling each other in on their jobs and their hopes and their lives.

Today I went downtown to the stadium to pick up my running kit for the Sun Run. I signed up before I heard the news from Boston, but it did make me extra-glad to be running this year. I've been working out weekly but not running, so it could be an epic fail on my part, but I shelled out sixty bucks on a sports bra that will keep the girls locked in place and get rid of the dreaded Uniboob, so I'm psyched. If I can still walk afterwards, I'll find my brother and sister-in-law somewhere in the throngs of runners and we'll celebrate by going somewhere where we can pack on all the calories we just burned.

This is Limbo right now: I still have exams but my head's not at school anymore. I have to leave town soon but it hasn't really hit me yet. I have nothing much happening in town before I leave and yet the future is cloudy...

Oh, I got headshots the other day. With all the back-and-forth on the Dove Real Beauty Sketches it was cool to see what the camera made of me. Of course, I see all the usual flaws, but overall I liked what I saw. And I'm eternally grateful to my friend Taylor, who took these shots for free.

I don't know if this is what beauty looks like, but it's what I look like. 

Spring Cleaning

April's still-cold breath is clearing away the clouds these days and allowing brief glimpses of loveliness before The Grey makes a comeback. I finished school really early, had an evening rehearsal, and saw from my Facebook browsing that my summer workplace is now promoting our new lineup of cast and crew. (So strange, that I'm hearing details about my future job on social media. The world at large knew- before I did- who is new, who is returning, what we're doing... I had a strange conversation with a musician I just met tonight; as she gave me a lift home we were chatting and it transpired that her boyfriend was a drummer I knew. She mentioned that he had been attacked last year by neighbourhood thugs and I realized that I had heard about it months ago on- you guessed it- Facebook.)

But I digress. Reading the news about my summer job prompted me to go buy some stage makeup, so that I can pack up the vintage makeup case I bought last year and start getting ready to leave my nest once again.

Now I think I'm set for the summer: new makeup, new hairpiece... what else sneaked (snuck?) into my shopping bag, you ask?

I swear, I only bought it for the retro wrapper.

One of my roommates is in the hospital right now. His health issues are not public business, so I won't go into them here, but his absence has lit a fire under the rest of us (he's the really messy one), and we are Spring Cleaning! I came home to find the other old roomie and the new one actually getting rid of junk in the living room. After I picked my jaw up off the floor I joined in. Now the new roomie has a workspace for his electronic bagpipe-building (remind me to tell you about that sometime), and tonight after I finish writing this, I'm going to clean up my sitting room. When I leave next month, the bagpipe-player and his wife are subletting my room. Since I like them and I'll save money, I couldn't be happier.

Spring cleaning in the wind, in my apartment, and in my mind. 

I finish school tomorrow, barring the exams, which stretch out over the next 2 weeks. I'll be tidying, doing taxes, packing, taking a short trip, and doing the odd gig before I leave next month. Not to mention trying to squeeze in a few meetings with friends and family before I go. 

I never want to go. Not 'til I'm on the bus, watching now-familiar landmarks whisk by as I get closer and closer to my summer home. My city is always at its best just before I leave. New possibilities are all around me and then... But there are old friends to see up north, and new friends to be made every year, and amazing stories to be told, and ridiculous personal dramas the ups and downs of a life lived in 2 homes. 

April's cold breath is a new beginning, with all that entails.