Getting To Know Me (Myself and I)

There are two elements to writing that make it exciting and compelling for those of us who love to do it. First of all, there is the feeling that writing is a kind of therapy, that by writing down emotions, feelings and thoughts, we are releasing those feelings. Writing as therapy isn't necessarily good writing or writing that should be published; it's part of that free writing, that first-draft writing that we do to get started, to find the true starting point of our story.
Secondly, there is the sense that we are learning about ourselves while we write that story. Since we are in control of what we write and how it will sound in print, usually what we know and what we learn about ourselves is obvious. There are times, however, when another reader, a stranger, reveals something new, something shocking (in a good or bad way).
I recently had an editor do an evaluation on a book I've written because I needed a stranger - someone who doesn't know me or my story and has no need to be "nice" in her critique - to put a critical eye to my work, particularly the opening 50 pages. Of all the comments and suggestions she made, one is slowly working its way through my consciousness, as a writer but also as a person. When listing the parts of my story that marked my strongest writing, she included "setting". She wanted to know more about the places about which I was writing and said she sensed setting is essential to me.
I did not know this about myself. When I was living in Vancouver, I spoke to my mother almost every day on the phone and she once commented that likely I was the only person in Canada who didn't talk about the weather. Have you noticed how many conversations around here open with a weather comment? No wonder my small talk sucks! I don't mind rain, sun, snow storms, wind; it doesn't seem to affect my mood or outlook so perhaps that's why it doesn't occur to me to talk about it. But what I notice is how the snow is blanketing the field behind the house or how the mist makes the woods look so pretty, how the river winds away from the road in a particular spot (and less about how the road winds!) and how the trees in our front yard bend but never break in high winds.
when I was in Vancouver, I longed for open spaces and quiet and water. I had to move East, to the setting of my childhood vacations, to find peace. I had to be in a particular setting to be happy in my heart.
So thanks to this editor, I have a new characteristic about myself to examine. And another mystery - why don't I talk about the weather? - solved.

More Bad Weather On The Way

That's the song that's playing right now on Steve Martin's bluegrass CD, "Rare Bird Alert" (Apparently, the actor has been playing banjo since he was a kid; if you like bluegrass, definitely pick up that CD). It's appropriate for this post since we've cancelled our trip to Halifax. Rainfall warnings and wind warnings! 50 mm and 100 km gusts! I'm not wimpy but I'm also not stupid.
Despite the fact my mother and I were heading into the city to attend a reading and book signing by our favourite author, Scotland's Ian Rankin, this is no weather to be out on the 104. I don't mind driving in rain but out on the highway with the transports kicking up blinding spray for metres and high winds rocking our vehicle left and right...not my idea of a relaxing Sunday, even if the weather makes me feel like I'm in the Shetland Islands.
Ach, I cannae believe I'm missing a chance to hear that Edinburgh accent!

Fuzzy Predictions About Winter

The fuzzy caterpillars, and the meteorologist's grandmother, are predicting a mild winter.
Before you get excited about "nice" winter weather, a few words of reality from my husband who has worked for the Department of Transportation's maintenance division for 32 years: A mild winter can be a messy winter.
We'll get winter whether the fuzzy caterpillars predict mild or harsh. This is Nova Scotia, Canada's ocean playground. In our beloved maritime province, pecipitation happens. According to my husband, who likely has seen everything in 32 winters, all a "mild winter" means is that it won't be very cold. No minus-32 degrees on the night of the big dance in January, no solid ice in the rivers for fishing and snowmobiling. If you're not into ice fishing or snowmobiling (or snowshoeing or cross-country skiing), sure, those milder temperatures are nice but like I said, around here, precipitation happens so what doesn't fall as snow...falls as rain. I'm about to use the f-word: Freezing rain.
Remember the massive ice storm of 1997?
Where were you for the ice storm of 2009?
Already, my husband is hinting that my Christmas gift this year won't be a snowblower...but an electric start generator.

The Morning Walk

Growing up, in Ontario, my father was the dog walker in the family. It was his dog and his morning ritual. The dog came with me only when I was heading out for a walk with a boy; she even once chaperoned a date to the drive-in movies...where she proceeded to let out a fart every ten minutes. 

When I got my own dog at the age of 26, I began my own walking rituals. We lived in Vancouver then, in an apartment, so we walked three times a day, long walks that took us through different neighbourhoods or to the beach or up into the mountains. Later, having moved back east, we still walked two and three times a day, down the road and along the beach when we were in Pugwash, around town or out in the woods if we were in Ontario. A new dog by then, with too much energy and no back yard. I’ve walked around the world a couple of times with her. 

In any kind of weather. Days of heavy rain in Vancouver or stinging snow whipping off Lake Ontario. The dregs of hurricanes or October snow in northern Nova Scotia.  

Now we live in the country so our walks are limited to daytime, to the road -- no woods walking during hunting season or after seeing coyote or bear tracks on the old dirt road behind the house; without streetlights to keep us safe, I have traded the solitude of walking in the dark for the peace of the river valley.  

On a particular morning...Fog lifts gently off the river and undulates over the field, cloaking the cows and their one horse companion in scarves of mist. Above the silhouette of trees, an orange glow promises the bursting arrival of the sun.

Over the abandoned house on the other side of the gully, purple fog drifts in the sky. Purple fog! Of course. The rising sun diffusing through the cool moisture creates unexpected palettes in the sky. Burning orange at its centre with a pink puff then purple at the edges.

The dog meanders through the ditch, seeking bodies to match the smells: mice, skunk, raccoons, fox, deer. Thankfully, they are long gone, safe and sound, into the woods or down by the river.

Every walk ends with coffee or tea; the anticipation of it keeps my feet moving briskly towards home. In the mornings, it is always coffee. The dog finds her bed in the sun and flops into it, knowing her breakfast comes later. Wisps of steam drift from the roof as the sun flings itself over the tops of the pine trees. While the coffee perks, I hang a load of wash on the clothesline, dark work clothes punctuated by a sunlit splash of red handkerchief.

That’s new, the laundry part of the ritual. I like it, like that it reminds me of why, when living in Vancouver, I always dreamed of living in the country.