pioneering

So often, I wish I were carving out life in the wildest west. That it could be a hundred-and-ten years ago, and I would rely on the strength and speed of horses to take me where I need to go. I think I could be pulling rocks out of a field in the unexplored Alberta prairie.

I wish I didn't know what it was like to have excess. Imagine not knowing what it's like to sit comatose in front of some electronic device or another. If lying around were not an option.

But it's too late for me; I already know what it's like to have this home and its refrigerator and a television and a computer and a cell phone. I doubt anyone can really leave these items and live pretending they don't exist, once they've lived with them and loved them for their usefulness.

I could have been a pioneer, if only I'd been born in a different time. I'm frustrated that my current self is not strong enough or determined enough for that life. Not at all, now that I'm already a quarter of a century into a certain way of life.

The task at hand is to find somewhere those two kinds of lives can meet.

twenty-five

Green grass and buds on my apple tree at last. I thought they'd never come. I've been plotting my escape to somewhere with real trees for weeks.

It's been a busy week. I turned another year older, and had more celebrations than I'd planned. I feel like I've done a million things this weekend. I bought an asparagus plant for my sister, searched three greenhouses until I found Autumn Gold pumpkin seeds (as I hate to deviate from whatever Lois suggests -- she knows best, doesn't she?), I cleaned the house, went to the farmers' market and bought a ham and some bread, had tea, wandered around the city with my sister, came back to a surprise party in my back yard, ate veggie burgers and drank beer and sat around a campfire with family and friends. And that was just on Saturday.

Just now I've filed an article I've been putting off (its deadline is today and I only just finished it). I'm sitting in a cafe downtown drinking chai while my husband is just a block away, digging up the road and wrecking havoc on traffic.

I am finally, finally going out to the lake this weekend and I can hardly wait. It has been too many months since I've stood on the beach by myself, staring out at the lake and willing that fluttery, anxious feeling in my chest to go away.

I've got five or more articles due this week before my dog and I can get away to the relative wilderness of the cabin lot. They might as well put me on payroll. All in all, it's not a bad gig.

teapots

It's the end of April.

These past four months have been rolling away faster than I can keep up with them. Have I been busy? I'm not really sure -- it certainly feels like it, doesn't it? Still, I don't really have much to show for myself for the past 120 days.

Some things that are not done:

1. Seeds haven't been started. I have a whole envelope bursting full with seeds. Tomatos, marigolds, arugula, basil, dill, cucumbers, pattypan squash, poppies. All dormant.

2. My books are not in order. I mean my financial books. Being self-employed is so much more than just doing what you love. I love to write and edit; I think I'm good at it. But after I've written and edited, there is the matter of invoicing. Depositing. Bookkeeping. I never meant to work the position of accounts receivable, but here I am, doing it (and poorly) and floundering in my own disorganization.

3. The knobs on our kitchen cabinets are still teapots. Still teapots. When we moved in, we said, "well, the first thing to go are those stupid teapots." But we cannot agree on a single knob in all the land. There are 403 knobs to choose from at Lee Valley. We didn't remotely agree on any of them. And none of the knobs at Home Depot, Rona, the ReStore, Home Re-Useables, or Anthropologie. Some of the teapots are broken or missing, and the doors shut so tightly. I have to pry the cupboard where I keep the mixing bowls open with a knife. Every time. For the past year.

4. I am behind on work projects. All the time. Every day.

In addition, the house is always a mess, we haven't done our taxes, the dog doesn't get walked enough, I've seen my horse only four times in the past four months, we're living down to the bottom of every paycheque.

Now I'm sitting in a cafe waiting for my meeting to show up for a potential freelance job. I hope I get it, but at the same time, I'm worried it'll just add to the list of things I'm not doing a good enough job with.

Snow is smothering the tiny new buds on my apple tree.

Spring is weird.

wistfulness

Today an old friend had his birthday party in the community hall next to the riding arena where we spent all of our teenaged summers. There's no sand now; it's grown in with grass. We stood in the middle of it in our nice shoes while the sun set. I looked around, pictured us together there, riding our horses around the outside of the arena on the springy lawn. Pictured her car there, where she used to park it when she taught riding lessons. Thought about the sound of her voice ringing out through summer evenings.

It was a strange sensation, standing right on the spot where my best friendships formed, where our closeness began, and feeling so removed from the environment, it was like I was looking at it for the first time. The place isn't ours anymore. It was like visiting somewhere that only looked similar to the real place, the one in the past. And like always, I missed her fiercely.

Still, I can go look at this place whenever I want, and if I squint at it, it looks close enough -- and I don't think I'll ever stop trying to feel close to her. Close to how we all were back then, before we were touched by death and growing up and moving on.

And it has been another long winter. It doesn't seem right to complain; the weather has been very kind. No minus forties or snow drifts up to my shoulders. But I haven't had my fair share of bird songs or tall trees or long, aimless wanderings on horseback. I miss the country, and the lake, and bare feet.

If I had to pick a feeling to characterize my life, it would be wistfulness, I am very sure.

the nature of things

these past few days i've felt a poem coming on.

or something like a poem. my head has felt in the right place -- a place you can't force it to be in; it just doesn't work that way.

this weekend i think i'll plan my garden. it's time to start seeds in my sunny front window. i look forward to the small joy of seeing that first speck of white and green appear in the soil. proof that life works, and goes on, and the nature of things is to grow.

love and some verses

sitting in a cafe trying to bang out an article i know nothing about. it isn't going very well. i am staring off into space and drinking my coffee too slow so it's cold. i want to go home, crawl into my bed, and close my eyes. my eyes are tired.

i'm listening to the song we signed our marriage register to. i was never capable of keeping it together during emotional moments (i have cried in front of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in my lifetime), so i was teary-eyed and my nose was running and i didn't have a tissue. i watched my best friend sign her name on the witness line and i felt eric's hand on my shoulder and i looked out at all of the people watching and thought to myself, "what if the song ends before we're done?"

i am obviously not the best at staying in the moment.

all of this to say i'm three days away from deadline and i haven't written a single word. 

dressage in the wintertime

I guess there's nothing stopping me from starting my work day at 2:30 PM at a coffee shop. Still, I feel guilty. It is a marvellously sunny day outside, and I wish I were riding a horse through a wide prairie. This wish will probably never go away.

I have been thinking about her a lot lately. She's always there, somewhere, but these past two weeks she has been at the forefront of my thoughts.

It's something to do with thinking about horses. With bringing my shaggy horse in from the pasture, cleaning him up, pulling his mane back to a respectable length. Schooling dressage alone in a quiet, cold indoor arena that reminds me so much of the arena at the old barn where we all met. Something about not being sure what it is I'm working towards when I ask for flexion and bend, when I ask for more impulsion, aiming for steady straightness and quiet transitions. There's no real reason for working towards these things, when there is no end result in mind and no one there to tell me should be able to do it, or to tell me I actually can do it. To congratulate me when it's done.

Without her it seems sort of pointless.

It could just be that it's winter and we're just as far in as we'll ever be out. It's a good season to be wistful.