Swimming, anyway

Okanagan Lake, Vernon - August 19, 2023, 5:36 pm

Forest fires run down valley crevices and along shorelines in the Okanagan these past weeks. The unpredictability of wind and heat, people flocking here to fight the rageful fires moving towards people’s homes. The people in those homes – children and pets and stuffed animals ‒ under their arms, fleeing. Fire trucks and defenders moving towards “the structures” to take a stand against all that heat.

We had been on Salt Spring Island for almost two weeks. Hot there, yes, but not the 37 and steady we left behind. Our first day on the island, my partner danced around the campsite amidst a light rain ‒ the first we had felt on our skin in over a month. It’s hard to explain just how dry the Okanagan gets ‒ think Christmas tree left up for a few extra weeks with no water in the bowl, needles jumping off as you heave it out the door. Think the driest twigs you scavenge to start your campfire, how easily they ignite.

We drove towards fires in all directions, tracing maps for roads that could still lead us home ‒ zig-zag maneuvers in a war zone. Are the animals as terrified as us, I wonder? They must sense potential for this fiery rage. One friend whose home was encircled by forest fires, yet saved, talked about the two deer and baby Bambies outside her window that seemed to sense something wrong. “Where are they now,” she wondered, worried about both their homes.

Two days into the fires, I drag myself out of bed to hit my yoga mat by 7:30 a.m. For the first three days, I could barely get moving ‒ so sad I was, so low and void of energy. The last thing I wanted to do was get up early every day and do yoga. Palms to chest, chant Om and the devotion to Patanjali, tune into our own sweet breath. Each morning started with lying on our backs doing a few gentle poses, tiny tears escaping the corner of my eye, heading towards my ear. Lesson One: Be present to our feelings; don’t push them away.

When I saw Chicago and New York, Ottawa ‒ hazed in the smoke of our Canadian fires, I must admit to a dark streak of satisfaction. I definitely didn’t want the trees burning, at all, nor critters running or flying to escape the heat and haze. Nor do I want houses or businesses destroyed by fires, all that hard work and melting of memories grounded in our concrete things. I was glad, however, that if there be fire, more people be exposed to what it feels like to live inside all that smoke. Maybe then, hands in prayer ‒ possibly, change.  

Raw throat. Hazy brain. Stay inside day after day. Air quality numbers: 10, 3, 7, 9 ‒ decide how far to walk the dog. How red is the sun? The moon? Red the indicator of just how much smoke fills our skies. Windows closed. Air conditioning? Circulating air will only bring in more smoke. Heavy body flat line deflated hope. Fire and smoke have paralyzed our bodies, our brains ‒ non-functioning and expected to go on. Even the sharpest amongst us want to go back to bed.

Lesson Two: Compassion. My yoga teacher says, we must first have compassion for ourselves before we feel compassion for others. I have never been one to easily have compassion for my own self, to be kind and nurturing. I was resistant to this yoga retreat, scared even. Would it be too hard? Can my muscles handle seven days? Sleeping might just be better, today. I nurture myself with each chant and forward bend. Honoring my sadness of flames in houses and burning trees, animals and humans frazzled and running.

Some of us believe there is something bigger than us, beyond us ‒ no heaven and hell for me or coming around for another life. And yet, there does seem to be some energy, some life force interconnecting and propelling all of life along. With all our interference ‒ our horrendous contributions to making our world so darn hot ‒ we’ve thrown natural cycles into a rage. Devastating floods and fires, hurricanes and bizarre storms. Left alone, the natural world would flourish. With us around, well.

Blue skies come so soon that it all feels like a dream. We can even ignore that light haze in the distance until we take a long bike-ride and swim that tells us otherwise. Raspy voice and sore throat as we wheel into our garage. The fires still burn, after all ‒ in West Kelowna and outside Yellowknife and Washington state, but also this summer in Greece and Spain, images of Lahaina charred into our brains.

I’m always one to see the silver lining, and bright side of things – and indeed, I can see this too ‒ the hard work of fire-folks saving houses and structures, whole cities. But wouldn’t it be much better if we were not in this war? Or on the front lines? On edge of when it will happen again? With our families in our homes, safe and eating ice cream or vacuuming the floor, deer wandering outside our window, simply eating leaves.

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Our Genius & Our Demons

Lake Mirage — Okanagan

Notice that light, and the mirage of clouds in water. Which is the sky, the lake? Notice also those heavy clouds looming – will the sun burst through or will they darken and spew out rain? Only this moment, all swirling together. Only time will tell.

Recently, a friend asked me to prepare a talk for her creative writing class on “how I became a writer.” A seemingly simple question with so many complex layers. At first, I was thrown back into my childhood – what first evoked the creative in me? Long before it became trendy or cool, we made something out of nothing, everyday. We had to – our lives depended on it – “organic” gardening and “repurposing” long before either had a sexy label or identity.

My seven-year-old hands pulled scraps of insulated blue and red cloth from a garbage bag, leftovers given to us from my grandmother’s sewing factory. I would search for a large enough piece to pin my pattern to – imagining my knee-high, colourful elf slippers I would soon sew. Another time, my mother and I kneeled on our kitchen floor to measure and cut the beige paisley plastic cloth to hang like curtains to fit our cupboard doors. Then, we’d cut a few slits to easily reach in and grab our plates or a glass. My whole family would plant seeds, weed and water – harvest onions and potatoes to store in our damp root cellar. It was this early creative living of my family that began to nurture the creative in me.   

As I look back on those years, I can also see that something much deeper was stirring inside. I hung posters on my barren, spotted walls – my father plastered over the nails but never quite got to the paint. Always some striking image of nature with an embedded lyrical and inspiration phrase (similar to the broadsides I enjoy creating today). Perched under a Catalpa, my wee-biceps grew weary as I sanded hard, and harder to refurbish a tattered guitar – dreaming of the day I would strum, I would sing. The deep pull of those poetic phrases, that song. I have come to see we never stray too far from our most natural and instinctive self. Could this possibly be our genius? What we have to offer the world?

I cannot say I am comfortable applying this word genius, to myself. Nothing I do ever feels quite that extraordinary or grand. When I look it up in the thesaurus, I see “talented” or “gifted.” Now, I can live with that. If we tune in closely, feel our way into our life, we will often notice this internal tug, signalling the way to our unique and spirited selves. In my early adult years, I also noticed this magnetism towards bold women writers – Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Adrienne Rich, Hildegard of Bingen. When they (or their work) stood in front of me, I was mesmerized – their words like thunder swirling into a dance – shimmering with both darkness and the light.

During my undergrad degree, I took my first public speaking course – terrified and determined to walk in the direction of that pull. I’d get sick the night before, then stand trembling, energy surging – my voice both thunder and the rain. I took a Journalism course, then Creative Writing, then a class I always think of as “artist as leader and visionary in the world.” In those years, always insecure, so unsure of myself. And yet, when I finally wrote or gave a speech – I managed to burst forth with a passion and clarity in my voice and ideas. My talents, gifts – yes, maybe even genius. But also, those dark heavy clouds never too far away. I was on my way to being a writer, but not without facing my demons inside.

Poet Kim Addonizio claims we cannot have our genius without our demons.* Our pull towards our one true self also makes us face internal blocks, challenges that threaten to choke or strangle our life. A woman who feels challenged in her body may be drawn to becoming a yoga instructor. A man who longs to be a nurse may have to cleanse himself from the machismo of his growing up years. In my case, I longed to be that bold woman writer, but not without facing my deep insecurities surrounding my writing, my voice. Like too man women:  Who am I to speak? What do I have to say, anyway? Who will ever listen? By writing into and through these destructive demon voices, I became freer, began to heal.

In the middle of all of this, we must listen, feel our way into – dig and chisel, excavate – what is our one (or two or three) true geniuses that are ours alone to offer the world? Once we know what they are, and tilt towards them, don’t be surprised when a dark demon’s head pokes out from that light. It is the bargain we make for following that tug – to have the courage to say yes, over and over again, even as we tremble and shake. Then maybe, on one clear day, you will stand boldly in the center of your own true self. Whether this is an awesome mother of three, an architect dreaming and drawing a new curvy structure, or any other form of the beauty that we are, that we have yet to become.

* Reference to Kim Addonizio’s chapter entitled “your genius, your demons” in her book, Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.

What is Hidden

Kalamalka Lake by lia ry Rose (Delia Mary Doege)

I am often amazed at just how happy I am to see my student’s full face – to get a peek at what is hidden behind the mask. I am so used to seeing them in class – only their eyes revealing their focus and attention, or their drifting away – their confusion or a sudden spark. I am also intrigued at how stunned I am that their face is never, ever, as I imagined. What is that about? They always look so different. And yet, I delight in the surprise, erupt into a smile as I see their face, revealed.

Finally, my partner and I were able to go to Florida – to see my mother and my sister’s family’s new home. We had been trying for four years – first, deterred from an aged and sick dog, then Covid came and you know the story – trapped. It had been five years since I had seen my mother. Now 86, I was ready for a bit of a shock. When our car pulled up to pick her up for dinner, there she sat in the headlights – perched on the stairs of her mobile home, waiting for us.

A flash-back of my grandfather – frail with that same long and narrow Irish face. I got out to give her a hand, to help her up – and then hugged her, feeling too many of her bones. She started to walk, tilted slightly to the right and a tiny bit hunched. I could see my grandpa, just the same – walking slowly towards the barn, a slight drag of his right foot. We become those from whom we have come. Or at least, somewhat. In some ways. No hiding this truth as we walk slowly towards the car.

One day while visiting mom in her home, she brought out a watercolor painting wrapped in a white translucent sack. Through it I could see light blue water and sky, the darker blue hills. A small brown building to the right. Although I’d never seen it before, it was familiar. It reminded me of our home in the Okanagan, BC. Over the phone she mentioned it several times, this picture I sent her of our new home-land, the big body of water where we now live. It is this picture that she took to her first watercolor painting class.

When I asked her about the painting, she reminded me of the picture. A picture she now cannot find. To me, it looks like the long view of Kalamalka lake from Vernon. I’m quite sure there was no cabin in the picture. This, very likely added by her own imagination, by the strong pull of her cabin in the woods, back in Minnesota. Her soul-space. Always trees and green. But what surprised me most was when she said: “I didn’t know I could do that. I didn’t know I could paint until I went to that class.”  

She went with a neighbor – rode with her from one small town to another, to a woman who was teaching watercolor painting to a small group. I have always known my mother is a creative person. Her love of music and singing, although I haven’t heard her sing often enough. I knew she could always create something out of nothing. I’ll never forget the days we spent cutting a patterned vinyl cloth to cover our doorless kitchen cupboards to keep out the dust. Imagine the creativity it takes to feed a family of seven, over and over again, on an air-tight budget.

But this painting, this is different. It is good. Really good. Beautiful, even. I wish I could capture the subtle shifts of greenish blues when the sun shines on it just so. She gifted this picture to me. After all, it was inspired by our landscape – by all the varied blues and trees. By how the water and sky can be the same color – so much so that you wouldn’t know which part of the picture to jump into for a swim. This awe and wonder of the natural world – one thing we both love, another important thing we share.

Before I would take her painting, I asked her to sign it for me. She was surprised, a bit shy. “Sign it?” “Yes please.” Days passed, and I realized I hadn’t gotten the painting back yet. It was the one thing I didn’t want to leave behind. One evening, while my wife was over at my sister’s house, I biked over to mom’s on our tandem bike for two, alone. My only intention – to make sure I got that painting. It seemed urgent, somehow, important. In her home, I took it out of the bag as we both looked on. She signed it: lia ry Rose.

“What? Who is that?” She looked at me and said: “‘lia’ is the second half of my first name, Delia. ‘ry,’ then, is the second half of my middle name, Mary.” “And Rose?” Rose was her confirmation name, important enough for her to tack it onto the end. Interesting. Her artist name. My mother, an artist. So glad this has been revealed. Another important thing we share – the creative, our need to create. No hiding this connection, this truth.

I biked away with a smile on my face. Maybe similar to the smile when I see my students unique and beautiful face, exposed. The painting tucked under my arm, secure – I bike away on our tandem bike. The back seat empty, people often joke: “Hey, your friend fell off!” My mother’s painting, or shall I say lia ry Rose’s, now framed in our hallway. With just the right slant of morning light, I notice the shifting blue-green hues that came from my mother’s brush.

The Hoodoos & Phantom Limbs

The Hoodoos - Banff, AB

The Hoodoos of Banff have watched over this Bow River – flowing eternally from the mountains – for a long, long time. They have sat quietly, listened – as the world swirls around. Water and pine, a crow and an osprey. They have watched deer and elk, bears – drink from the river or catch some fish. Far enough away from the townsite – this is what I see, what I imagine. I sit in their presence like a sister, become quieter as I sit. I get up to hike closer, pulled towards them in awe. Their sand and softness. Their bold presence. Their humble and quiet power.

Nine years ago, we came through Banff on our move to BC, stayed for a few days to ground ourselves before heading off to our new home of Vernon. We had just quit two full-time power jobs and sold our beloved home back in London, Ontario, for the promise of trees and mountains, the calming blue of Kalamalka Lake. We wanted beauty that would blow us away – every day, remind us of the energy and aliveness that lies at the centre of every living thing. For our first few months, we had long hikes on most days and jumped into that blue. We still do.

Naive and happy after our recent time in Banff, we head off to Jasper – aware we are heading into some other kind of wildness. We learned more about bears in the past few weeks than our entire time in BC. So many of us walking around with bear spray, unsure of the threat. Where’s the bear? Towing our tiny T@B, we turn into our campground after a gripping drive on winding mountain roads. If it wasn’t for the man in the dark green Parks Canada shirt handing us our ticket for the next twelve days, I would have thought we had just taken a wrong turn – driven straight into a clear cut. What the heck happened here?

Pine beetles. And more pine beetles. Tiny pin head bugs killed all the trees. That’s the short answer. After backing our wee-camper into our tiny and treeless camping spot, we assess the damage of the landscape. I count twelve tree stumps sticking out of the earth, right in front of our site. Some black trees had fallen to the earth on their own, exposing their dead roots. We walk on a path towards the bathroom amidst the chaos of brittle branches, more stumps and fallen trees. We step over a few trunks lying across our path. Circles of black soot from burned brush and grass sporadically appear. My body suddenly feels as lifeless as these phantom trees.

Phantom Pine — Jasper, AB

We agree to stay, start calling it our “apocalyptic campsite.” We say, we can enjoy ourselves anywhere, no? We can do this. It’s our holiday; we’ve been planning for months. We’re here to celebrate our

twenty-five years together – we must! When we bump into someone and chat, they are as horrified as we are. Although when we look around, it’s more like the scene in a very dark satire – each tiny circle of us reading books in our lounge chairs, holding hot dogs over small fires, enjoying an evening cocktail as if we can go on in the backdrop of a massacred land.

Then the smoke moves in from the BC wildfires. After a few days, we can no longer take in the beauty of the long view – the mountains, now too, invisible. The “wapiti,” the elk, continue to wander and nudge their noses into the earth where they used to be in the shade of a tree. When I try to sleep at night, my body feels as if it is one big phantom limb, absorbing the pain of what is lost – but should still be there. We decide to leave the next day – check into an Inn, even though we’re sure we cannot check out of this current apocalypse.

The long answer, of course, is living within a climate that has changed. It’s getting too hot – too early and too often. Pine beetles are multiplying faster and no longer dying off in the needed extreme cold. They can live longer and multiply. Infect more trees. The smoke, of course, it doesn’t take a fool to know that if I throw a match outside my window right now, here in the Okanagan, I could eliminate my entire town and beyond in a very short period of time.  It’s that hot, that dry.

Once we can’t take it any more, we go back to the close view, the beauty we can find while in Jasper – and we do. We find so much beauty. We bike to the blue-green mountain lakes every day and jump in, swim in the warmth of Lake Annette and Edith (the lakes named after women is not lost on us!). I delight in the ground squirrels and the very fat marmots, who I learn, hibernate for the winter. Who knew? On our bike back to our Inn, we stop once more to plunge our warm bodies into the glacial water of Lac Beauvert, and quickly jump out – charged!

On our gondola ride (on the one non-smoky day), I take an aerial view of the green and orange and black pines – a collage of breathing and death. Our gondola then glides into a cloud where all we can see is gray haze and mist. Once our gondola breaks through the inversion, I’m sure we have lifted up into another good world – one so soft and pure above the clouds. It’s all here on this one ride, on this one trip, which has altered me, deeply. My body will always remember, limb that it is.