After twelve days on the road followed by a further day of work at home and battling a flu I finally have a day off.
This morning the wind is gusting off the sea and it’s dry. The forest is drying out, kinglets and sparrows flitting around and eagles are being chased by the crows who are trying to nest in peace.
I feel the same way. Letting all that soaked through me just drain out. Watching an afternoon scooter match between Manchester United and Blackburn, drinking tea and smoothies and walking in the woods with my beloved. I’ll have a little ferry ride this afternoon to see a friend and recover a lost laptop bag, and I’m looking forward to the ease and flow of having otherwise nowhere to go and nothing to do for a couple of days.
Drying out.
A long day of traveling home from Minnesota made longer by a bout of flu and a cough. Hopefully I didn’t poison anyone in the way home. It will be good to have a rest, and see how spring has come in while I’ve been away most of the last three weeks.
Location:Howe Sound
Sitting in a Caribou coffee shop in a nondescript sprawl of outlet malls and suburban detritus somewhere northwest of the Twin Cities.
We begin two days of work tomorrow with a cohort of community health coalitions working to improve child health around the state. It is the second residential retreat in a centre in the banks if the Mississippi and it will be great. But noticing in this moment a tired longing for spring at home.
Back at home on Bowen Island after a few days away with the family. It is rainy here today and the fog is draped on the snow capped mountains and ridges. Our coast has been pounded by a late blast of winter wind and rain and snow and now the sky wears its blue and grey colours like a bruise.
When I am here at home these days there are rhythms and patterns I like to indulge in. One of them is mornings spent here at The Snug with a cup of fine espresso and the ins and outs of neighbors and friends dropping in. These are social practices of being at home, being in community, being in relationship. I have learned a lot about humans over these small cups of invitation.
Location:The Snug, Bowen Island,Canada
Sometimes the best map will not guide you,
You can’t see what’s round the bend.
Sometimes the road leads though dark places,
Sometimes the darkness is your friend.
— Bruce Cockburn, Pacing The Cage
This is part of the boardwalk along the Nuu-Chah-Nulth trail in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve near Tofino. The trail winds in and out of shadowy and windswept Sitka spruce and shorepine. All along you are within earshot of the roaring white noise of the breakers rolling in off the North Pacific. Every time the trail ducks into the forest a cathedral of space opens up, and when it emerges again into bog, one feels enclosed by the surrounding forest and walls of salmonberries, salal and Nootka rose. To walk the trail as a meditation is to breath between these two paradoxes.
Sometimes the darkness has more openness than the light.