The To Do List

I am very good at making to do lists. Sometimes I even write items on my to do list that I have already done, just so I can cross them off (I know I’m not the only one). Last week I got home from a particularly long week away. Work, appointments and other obligations had me in the city until Wednesday. When I got home, I was so happy to see my desk at the window, so I sat and looked out the window and made a list. #1: figure out life; #2: finish application to Banff Writing Studio. Lately I have felt this pull of paid work and volunteer obligations become so heavy I feel I can’t breathe. I need to get back to writing and the manuscript. My #2 related to my #1, so I finished the Banff application, (fingers crossed!) and got back to working on an improved plan for paid work that will allow me to focus on the manuscript.

Summer Into Fall

Suddenly it is fall on the coast. In mid-september I went from sandals in the sunshine to dew on my bare ankles. Now I am wearing wool and gore-tex. I never thought i’d make it this far. October and I am still in my little apartment overlooking the sea. The leaves are turning everywhere and it is brilliant. Last week, F and I went to see if there were any salmon in Angus creek, near Porpoise Bay in Sechelt. (A lot like the salmon, we returned to the spot we met). However, there were no salmon in the creek, and very little water in the stream.

I have also returned my mother’s gift to me: use of her car for the summer. I have lived for almost 10 years without a car in Vancouver and Toronto, but in a small town, I know it is different but I am up for the challenge and will post my thoughts about it over the next few months.

New Window Arrives!

After a weekend at the Vancouver Film Fest, I arrived back to find a new window installed. Along with my new window and new season that arrived over the weekend, there are other new things in my work-writing life: macbook, music (Iron & Wine), and a writing plan (real deadlines).

Welcome to Summer!

“Welcome to summer!” an elderly woman said to me as I walked home at 1:00 pm along the road from the ferry.

Indeed, I thought to myself. Such gratitude that I don’t have to be at an office on a day like today.

Questions for God

I have started a routine – halleluiah! (I even plan to discuss this schedule with my clients in September so I can stick to it). I get up in the mornings and take my coffee and notebook down to the front patio to work. Getting away from my computer helps my creativity and so does being in the world first thing in the morning. I usually write/edit for one to two hours. Today I edited for one and wrote for one. I am working on a key piece in my manuscript: Questions for God. I can’t get this one right– not the timing, not the tense, not the order of occurrence. Today I realized I needed to write two other stories in order to get to this one. So I did. One story involves a book I was never allowed to finish, Forever by Judy Blume. I realized today I have never actually read this book after my mother confiscated it.

Policing the Community

This morning I woke up thinking of naked evening swims. I decide this is something I will do before the nice weather retreats.

Then I remember the bull-horn.

In Grantham’s Landing, the community owns the wharf. They bought it for a dollar several years ago. Since I moved here, there have been many times this summer–mostly when teenagers are on the wharf–that someone who lives in the landing takes it upon himself to police the community. With a bull-horn.

Today it was when some teenage boys put their motorized dinghy on the dock to clean it out.
“Get that boat off the dock” a loud voice booms from somewhere to my right.
“Why?” the boys yell back.
“You are not allowed to have boats on the dock” the voice booms back.
The teens swear, which the water carries across to me (and the guy with the horn).

What is wrong with people? Why is it that with every community project, there is always one person who decides it is their job to police the others. It’s creepy.

I think about all this as I plan my naked swim.

Returning to a quiet life

 

 

Last week I worked in the city and lived in the west end. I traded my place in Grantham’s for t&e’s place in west end. I am still transitioning: city/cottage life; cottage/city life. Still trying to find a balance of paid work/unpaid work (my writing). Saturday I spent at English Bay writing and pretending to work. I do this often. When I arrived home on Saturday night, after watching the grapefruit sky, I unpacked and went to sleep with the waves on the shore in my ear.