Swept away.

So far it's one of those springs when the weather got hot early and the snow has melted quickly. The local creeks are full and rushing and the combination of this and fine weather seems to draw young men (typically) to fast water. Two were lost at the height of the heatwave in Gold Creek near here, in a swimming hole we have swum in but that was late in the summer and by then the water was tired from rushing and the only danger was the icy temperature. Even my dad leaped into the granite pool carved there by centuries of falling water. Young men have also been lost in capsized canoes in deep interior lakes that bear pioneer women's names. Bodies are washing up on the banks of the Fraser, remains have been found up north in Prince George. Yesterday a boulder crushed two campers, a man and his daughter. Harsh spring, but a beautiful one.

The sun has been shining and so I have had no time to be reflective beyond noticing how tremendously hopeful and happy I feel. On Monday while I hung out the laundry on the clothesline I could hear bees buzzing loudly and naturally thought it sounded like trucks and cars whizzing by on the Trans-Canada highway 5 miles to the north. It turned out it was a bee swarm in a tree above my office. Mark was panicked as he has an irrational fear of bees and he was in the office when they appeared. I was over-the-moon. Let's face it the last few months have been rather hellish in the work department so the appearance of nature's busiest creature felt more symbolic than plagueish to me. The bees have stayed and so have the indications that I will probably be okay after all. I launched my new website, and reinstated my land line after a year and a channel of communication as wide as the Ganges has opened. We borrowed a box for the bees from our neighbor on Tuesday and thanks to the internet we set it in what seems like a good location. We rubbed the box with lemon rind and Mark put a bit of honey near the entrance. He relaxed around the bees and let his natural obsessive tendency kick in checking on the swarm and box every 45 seconds.

It's 8 days later now, it's been raining and I have returned from Canada to discover the swarm still up in the tree but the bee box is quiet and I fear barren. I have been busy with work and in between things today I took the opportunity to prune a few limbs along the driveway. I found myself under this red twig dogwood and the blossoms were alive with bees. I felt so pleased to discover they were here on the property. I am hoping that there is so much pollen to be had that the bees are lingering around and are enjoying being up that tree. Who can blame them, they have a view of the whole yard. I really want to open the box to see what went on in there. Did they just come in and raid the cupboards, so-to-speak, rob the hive of its honey and move along? It's a possibility but they are still up there so I am still hopeful that they will let me make them a home here.

Mood swings.

Holy cow, almost a month since my last post. Time flies and not in a good way always. In some ways I am just hanging on by a thread but in most ways I am a hardy Fir tree, sturdy and deeply rooted in my routine which feeds all my needs, creatively anyway. Spring is arriving like baby teeth, coming up and receding, sometimes all in the same day. I am rebuilding things, re-making myself, coming back out of the shell I put myself in now and then only to realize that while I love shell life I love the bigger world too. What I want to know is if all this positivity is due to the weather or if I am generating it myself. I haven't felt this good in years, maybe ever but I was a bit surprised when I noticed other people were feeling super good too and it was sunny and we all got outside. Am I responding to mass hysteria brought on by the pollen rich air? I prefer to think I am the master of my moods and that the sunshine just makes it all more pleasant rather than the other way around. I want to think I can control how I feel about things. I think I can, I think I can, I feel like I am.

Rite of Spring

A pair of Robins. One lays on the road, breast up, her fragile neck no match for the passing farm vehicles and minivans. Her live mate swoops and waits airborne, and the morning passes with cars and trucks too heavy for the road slowly grinding the little carcass into the blacktop, red breast no more.

My father is this bird waiting for his mate to rise again, her brain filled with blood. He flies to her side on the city bus twice a day and darts into her room in the neurosciences ward at VGH. He swoops behind her curtain and waits, places his large hand on her shrinking head. She smiles in her sleep but eats little. I say like a bird, and he reminds me birds eat many times their body weight each day. I adjust my analogy. She eats like a person who is not convinced she wants to keep on going with this particular charade.

Some days she smiles up at him when he comes in and they look at each other, what is there to say, they are both run over by sadness. She can't speak and so he holds her small hand or reads to her and tries to understand what her experience is. If she knows the difference between here and home, between black top and black hats, if she remembers about spring and Robins and how they hang together even when one is struck down.

The black top is not as solid as it seems. From her vantage point, the dead Robin can see it is many small rocks held together by tar that overtime shrinks away. And so it is possible to come apart and disappear in to the spaces in between, bones crushed upon impact, organs pulverized by tires, feathers damp with rain and demolished. The lucky ones taking flight on the spring breeze swooping and soaring across nearby blueberry fields in search of city buses.

First Full Day of Spring

It's hard not to feel happy on the first day of spring.

Then nothing.

I wrote that line last week. It was all I had in me.

On the first day of spring I passed a white dove on my walk, how ridiculously romantic is that?

The neighbors wave as I pass by and everyone is feeling the overwhelming positive haze that spring brings. All are compelled to get out there, slash and burn, sweep and hoe. We move in unison in Spring.

I keep walking, the work keeps coming and while my brain goes in a million directions I stick to my routine.

I bought pea seeds, I wonder if I'll plant them.