#Banjoy – The Avett Brothers

I have been continuing my streak of really not blogging. It's getting to the point that I have been wondering if this blog is just – over.

I don't know yet; I haven't decided.

But while I continue to mull it over, I came across this song today and wanted to send its beautiful banjoy-o-rama out to those of you who visit this blog for a dose of #banjoy:

2019 Word of the Year

Time for the 2019 Word of the Year. A time to reflect and look forward.

I think my 2018 Word of the Year: Hermitage, was right on the money. I spent as much time as I could last year holed up in the woods in my new cabin. And it seems that my desire to be a hermit applied to my online presence as well as to my daily life. Last year saw the lowest number of posts on this blog, by far, in any year since it began.

Which feels "not like me".

Indeed, I have been feeling kind of funny lately in general. And I don't mean funny-haha, I mean funny-strange.

Not in a terrible way. My mood is decent most of the time. I think I just have a lot on my mind. I am processing many things and trying to figure them out. I feel uncertain of my path.

It's easiest for me to hide out when I'm feeling that way. And so, I am particularly grateful this year for this tradition of setting a word as a theme and inspiration for 2019. Wanting to maintain this 6-year streak is pulling me out of hiding for a few minutes and giving me an opportunity to think about and share where I'm at and how I'm feeling.

For 2019, I have selected the word: Attune.

I was all set to pick something more dramatic, like transformation or metamorphosis. But then I looked at the definitions for those words and they spoke of changing one thing completely or dramatically into something else. And that is not what I want this year to be about.

Things are shifting, for sure, and I am changing, but not radically. Carefully, gently, deliberately, with hope and compassion.

And just look at the definition for attune:

Courtesy of the Google Dictionary. To see this larger and live-r,
visit https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&q=Dictionary#dobs=attune

Dictionary definitions turn me on at the best of times, but I can feel this one put its arms around me and look deep into my eyes, if you know what I mean.

Welcome, 2019. Let's attune to one another.

Adulting – with bleach

There is a task that I have been putting off for a long time. Months, in fact.

When my plumbing fixtures were first installed, I was supposed to shock my well and all of the components of my water system with bleach.

I have been incredibly resistant to doing this. I mean, I shoulda done it back at the beginning of February, and it's now heading into the middle of October.

I have some empathy for myself in my resistance. I have some good reasons:

1. I love my well and I long ago learned that you shouldn't pour bleach down the throat of something you love. 
2. I have never done this (or anything like it) before. It feels new and unknown and therefore complicated and scary. 
3. It requires planning, equipment and supplies.
4. It requires time and effort. 
5. Did I mention that it involves bleach? I very rarely use bleach for ANYTHING. It is not my go-to for ANY task or purpose. I rarely even have bleach in my house. I don't like the way it smells. I don't like what it does, I just: ugh, yuck, icky, guh, blech.

And, I've decided it needs to get done. Just once. Just for the sake of doing it and having it done.

A note about my water quality

My water is great. I've had it tested. It doesn't contain any nasty chemicals and it doesn't contain any e. coli. It does contain choliforms, the benign bacteria that are just, you know, in the world.

A while back, it was deemed acceptable to have a certain number in choliforms in your well water in Nova Scotia. That number was dropped and dropped again, and currently there is a zero tolerance policy for choliforms.

Which is probably why most people have problems keeping a healthy population of friendly bacteria in their gut biome. But that's a rant for another day.

I've had my water tested for chemical impurities too and it is aces. Basically, I won the lottery of dug wells – I have lots of water and it's good water.

But, the presence of choliforms is deemed to be a red flag that my well is at risk of being contaminated by e. coli. And because my water tested positive for them, I have been living under my own personal boil water advisory since I moved into my cabin in February.

I have decided to accept that my water system should be cleaned out, at least once, to ascertain that my well is not compromised or at risk of further contamination, and to get rid of anything that might have gotten introduced when the pump and other plumbing was installed. And I would also like to be able to serve my water to guests without long explanations about why I'm giving them lukewarm, previously-boiled or bottled water.

The process

There is a whole publication about wells for Nova Scotian residents which can be found here, for anyone who is interested. Essentially, the process of "cleaning" a well is called shock chlorination and it involves putting bleach in the well, circulating it through all of the components of the water system, and then discharging it, trying to get as little as possible into the septic system, which really doesn't want to have all of its bacteria killed.

I have decided on one additional step, which involves patting myself on the back and eating cake.

Here are some photos:

Portrait of the blogger as a reluctant adult complying with provincial water quality guidelines. 

It took approximately FOREVER to try to clear the smell of bleach from my very low-flow bathroom tap.  

At least it was a gorgeous fall day. 

And my hose reached far enough to follow the instructions to circulate the bleached water for an hour in a loop between my cabin and the well. 

Looking down.

Securing the well cap. 

Salinger and I had one of our very rare arguments that day. He thought he should be allowed to lap up the bleach water that I was pouring on the driveway (to divert it from the septic system) while I thought that was a terrible idea. We worked out a compromise that included a combination of imprisoning him in the house, yelling at him each time he escaped and approached the puddles on the driveway and hosing away the bleach water with fresh water. Salinger was displeased with the whole process, and I don't blame him. It was no fun for anyone.

I should have gotten them to decorate it: "Happy shock chlorination" is probably not something that gets written on cakes very often. If ever. 

I do have a thing for badass, cheap, white bakery cake with icing that doesn't even pretend to have butter in it. And doesn't it look nice (is that the word I'm looking for?) on my beloved Fish's Eddy Manhattan skyline plate? 

I'm not going to lie to you. I hated every minute of this entire process. Even the cake didn't really help. I felt so anxious while I was doing this that I felt somewhat unhinged. I had every irrational fear (and maybe a few rational ones): that I was doing it all wrong, that I was poisoning myself and my beloved cat, that I was damaging my pump, my hot water heater, my pipes and every single element of my water system, that it was a mistake to do it in the first place.

It's been a week and while I've relaxed a great deal, I'm still not feeling settled about it. I still get mild whiffs of chlorine some of the time, at some of my taps and keep fighting off "always/never" thinking (I will always smell bleach in my water. I will never feel comfortable drinking it). I have taken a couple of showers without feeling like I've gotten chemical burns. I'm still not drinking my water, though, even boiled. It just feels too gross.

And that's funny because I lived in cities for so many years and drank chlorinated water without even batting an eye.

I am owning that this process made me feel completely not rational. And that was hard.

It reminds me that I put a lot of effort into organizing my life in ways that allow me to feel rational most of the time. I've been thinking this week especially about how that is a luxury afforded to me by privilege. And how incredibly grateful I feel that I have that luxury. Feeling that anxious all of the time would be agonizing. I guess I would get through it if I absolutely had to, but I am very, very thankful that I do not.

I took a water sample into the hospital on Thursday and should get results next week. Let's hope, after all that, that this at least accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish.

Update (October 17): Got my first water test results back and my water is zero for both choliforms and e. coli. Sweet. 

That was bad. That was good.

September is drawing to a close.

And this year, I'm glad to see it go.

It has been a tough month for me.

And a wonderful month.

Exhausting.

Full.

Heart-lifting.

Heart-breaking.

I am reminded of one of my favourite episodes of the Simpsons, the one in which Homer buys a Krusty Doll at a curiosity shop and the owner engages in this bit of dialogue:

That is what my month has felt like.

Allow me to illustrate with one example from Late Summer 2018 (SQUEAMISHNESS WARNING: this post details a minor medical procedure):

One beautiful day in the late summer, some relatives and I got slices of pizza and went to the beach.

That was good.

When I went in swimming, I tripped on some rocks and fell.

That was bad.

But I wasn't seriously injured.

That was good.

But I did get a foreign object lodged in my foot.

That was bad.

But it was pretty small.

That was good.

I was still quite freaked out.

That was bad.

My relatives drove me home and one of my relatives was able to give me a first aid kit they had in their car.

That was good.

But even with the help of the first aid kit, I couldn't get the foreign object out.

That was bad.

But, I calmed down and let my relatives carry on so I didn't have to ruin the rest of their day while I soaked my foot in salt water to see if that would help.

That was good.

But it didn't help.

That was bad.

But, it was good timing to go to the walk-in clinic in Bridgewater and I was able to drive myself there.

That was good.

But I arrived 15 minutes after the beginning of registration.

That was bad.

But I still got on the list – 18th out of 25 people accepted.

That was good.

But when I told them what was wrong with me, they said the walk-in clinic probably wouldn't have the right equipment to treat me.

That was bad.

But that the emergency department would be able to help me.

That was good.

But the wait in emergency was very long.

That was bad.

But there were interesting people to talk with. 

That was good.

But most of the conversations were about how Nova Scotia's health care system is not working very well for a lot of people.

That was bad.

And more and more people kept arriving.

That was also bad.

Compared to them, I had nothing seriously wrong with me.

That was good (for me, anyway).

But it meant that I was unlikely to get treated – ever – or at least until my foot went septic and/or gangrenous.

That was bad.

After about 4 hours of waiting, one of the newer arrivals to the waiting area asked me "Why don't you try Liverpool Hospital instead?", an excellent question.

That was good.

I was tired and it took me more than a half an hour to drive to Liverpool.

That was bad.

But I had thought to bring a piece of pizza with me which I ate along the way for supper.

That was good.

Walking up to Liverpool hospital, I could feel that my foot was getting more painful.

That was bad.

But the triage nurse was super-nice and tried to see if she could take the foreign object out without me having to wait for a doctor.

That was good.

But she couldn't get it out – and she didn't have anything except a little lidocaine to numb the pain. I cursed – a lot.

That part was really bad.

But she was great about it and said it was okay for me to curse.

That was good.

But I had to wait to see a doctor after all.

That was bad.

But when I used the little black phone to register my presence with the front desk at the hospital, the staff person said, "So, you got a rock in your foot, hunh?" which was pretty funny and we had a hearty laugh about it.

That was good.

But then I had to wait.

That was bad.

But I got put into a treatment room after about an hour, which was way better than the 3-4 days that would have been my best guess for my wait time in Bridgewater.

That was good.

They put me into a treatment room with another patient and his partner.

That was a little weird.

But they were both really interesting and sweet and we had a lovely chat.

That was good.

Then the other patient got treated (by a fantastic doctor) and they all left and I was all alone for what felt like a really long time and I thought maybe everyone had forgotten all about me.

That was bad.

But then the same fantastic doctor came back and tried to get the foreign object out of my foot.

That was good.

But she couldn't do it.

That was bad. And at the same time, it was good, because at least I didn't feel like I should have been able to take it out myself and was wasting everyone's time by coming to the emergency room.

The doctor reassessed the situation and decided to give me some local freezing.

That was good.

But getting it injected with a needle was NOT FUN.

That was bad.

But then my foot was numb.

And that was GOOD.

And then the doctor dug around and cut and tweezed and stuff like that and extracted the foreign object.

That was also good.

And it turned out the foreign object in my foot was an entire, small periwinkle shell.

That was COOL.

That was INSIDE my foot – for about 10 hours.

The doc said that she had taken a lot of things out of a lot of people's bodies, but this was a first for her.

That was also cool.

I got to keep the shell.

And that was also cool.

The staff all laughed with me about it. Before I left, I waited for the triage nurse to be available so I could show her the shell and commiserate about how neither of us had been able to get it out of my foot – not surprising since it was round and had completely embedded itself in my foot so that there was no way to get a grip on it without doing some hard-core excavation.

That was good.

I was able to drive myself home.

That was also good.

My foot was very sore for several days and then itchy as heck for several more days.

That was bad.

But there was no subsequent infection or need for further treatment.

That was good.

Almost a month later, there is still a scab on my foot.

Which is kind of weird.

But it doesn't hurt.

That is good.

And the Frogurt is also cursed. 

(Very) amateur gardening and foraging

I have many friends who are amazing – and often professional – gardeners and foragers. I am not one of them. But at the end of a long (and fairly frustrating) week of desk work, it felt lovely on this hot, Friday evening to take a walk around my property. 

Before I get back to work for a couple more hours, I would like to share my photos with you.

Embryonic zukes. I'm hoping for a deluge
(this is the first year a zucchini plant has lived to maturity in my garden).

My first few raspberries!

Kale and other greens.

My main garden area is a chaotic, haphazard mess with treacherous
footing. It hardly feels like it interrupts the woods at all and I love it!

Flowers planted – or soon to be planted – in my scattered
hugelkultur beds and my "septic meadow".

The black walnut tree (a gift from my folks) that I planted the first year I owned this land.
It's doing well, but I think I'm going to move it next spring as it is fairly close to my
well and I don't want any juglone in my water supply...

Old dump (one of several).

Sweet little oaklings are shooting up in the sunshine
available since so many big trees uprooted this winter. 

I marked the spot where I found some chanterelles with a flag of green tape.

Indian Pipes – a chanterelle companion/marker.

One small chanterelle, with requisite slug.

Weird little standing stone beauty spot.

I wonder if there are chanterelles hidden under those downed trees?

Salinger leads the way onward.

I only have three acres, but I am endlessly amazed by the variety
of the terrain. The brook that forms the boundary line at the
back of The Crooked Wood is surrounded by a grassy wetland.
The footing here is treacherous and always puts me in mind
of the Marshes of Morva in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain. Someday,
when I have time, I plan to build some corduroy paths through
this area so I can explore it without losing my boots.

The most open skies in The Crooked Wood.
With signature crookedness, of course.

Crooked fallen tree beauty spot.

Crackerjacks, I think these are called. The berries taste like wintergreen;
I don't like wintergreen. At all. They are very cheerful-looking though. 

In my earlier post about gardening this year, I pondered whether I would have the budget to invest in some nut trees, and shortly after I wrote that post, some friends announced that they had some leftovers from a big order they had placed that they were selling at excellent prices.

I bought six – two hazelnuts, two heartnuts, one Persian Walnut and one Ultra-Northern Pecan. I thought I lost three of them in the late frost that hit in June – all of the leaves on the Walnut and one of the heartnuts turned black and shrivelled up and the pecan tree was just a stick.

Amazingly, they bounced back and all six are currently alive and well.

The Persian Walnut, thriving. 

The Ultra-Northern Pecan. Just a stick for the longest time,
the leaves on this tree still seem small and tentative, almost
as if they are saying "Is it okay to come out yet?" It's 36 degrees
with the humidex, baby, and it's not going to get any warmer
(At least, I hope not).

When I was digging the holes to plant the nut trees – all six of them in one day after a winter of desk work, which was a bit of trial by fire – I described the process as "piling in with a pickaxe to uncover rocks – and air". Quite literally, the was very often NO SOIL in the places where I hoped to put my trees. So, I cleared out the rocks and had to bring buckets of soil and compost to make the holes habitable.

Here is a picture of one of the many trees that uprooted on my land this winter,
illustrating that trees living with their roots in rocks and air are
very likely to tip over if the wind blows hard enough. 

Looking up the hill at the cabin. 

Approaching the back door. In time, this chaotic
tangle of dead wood will be transformed into a garden.
In time. Probably lots and lots of time.

Thanks for coming along with me on this little tour. If you garden or forage, I wish you a bountiful summer! 

Scent memory – hot conifers

It's been really warm on the south shore of Nova Scotia for the past week or so. Mid-to-high twenties with humidex warnings – something we are not used to at all.

I drove home late this evening after playing some songs at a show in Mahone Bay. I got out at the top of my driveway to pick up the stupid flyers that someone throws there every Wednesday and I was hit with the smell of The Crooked Wood at the end of a hot day. Hot pine and spruce trees, hot fir and hemlock.

That smell never fails to take me to a very specific place and time: 1981, the Sierra Nevada mountains, California.

I was ten years old and my dad was driving me and my sister from Toronto to San Diego and back again. Why? Partly because my dad loves car trips and partly to see some cousins and my dad's grandmother (aka, my great-grandmother, "California Nana" as we called her).

We met up with one of my dad's first cousins with his wife and kids in King's Canyon National Park and spent a few days camping there. Talk about hot conifers! Ninety-some-odd degrees Fahrenheit and sunny during the days in the midst of a forest of giant sequoia and redwood trees. I don't think I'd ever smelled that smell before. Growing up in Toronto, there simply weren't enough trees and while summer trips to Harbourville, Nova Scotia had provided lots of exposure to evergreen trees, they weren't ever hot – they seemed almost perpetually fogged in, their scent easily drowned out by the smell of the salt, sea air.

I think it's safe to say that I fell in love with the smell of hot evergreen trees during those few days in King's Canyon National Park. I never smell them now without feeling something about how it felt to be 10 years old. I was on the cusp of so much change, but I wasn't changed yet. I felt I was exactly who I was, and who I had so far felt myself to be in life. That smell is locked deep in my psyche, somewhere innocent and fun-loving, a place that houses a deep sense of peace and love and selfhood.

I hope everyone has a smell like that – whether it's grandma's cookies or the smell of baseball gloves or rain on dry pavement – something that takes them back to a time that felt essential and clear, that grants a window, or better still, a door back to that state of being, to a state of grace.

  

Regard – Part I (The Gift of Presence)

***This is the first in a series of posts about the concept of regard. I'm not sure how many parts the series is going to have, probably four or five and possibly more. I will tag each of them with #regard, so if you click on that label in the right-hand column of my blog it should pull up all of the posts in the series (all that have been written and posted so far, that is).*** 

This post is dedicated with gratitude to Frank, Momo, Trevor and my Mom.

“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

I have been thinking lately about the concept of "regard".

It's a word that I use often, but I have to admit that I had not given much thought to what it means. "Best regards," I often write in work emails; sometimes "Kindest regards" or "Warm regards" to friends and extended family members; or just plain "Regards" when I'm stumped for a closing salutation.

Then, I had an experience this past winter that brought my attention to thinking about regard and what it means in new and different ways. 

I have a friend named Frank, who lives in the States. He and I don't know each other particularly well – we met briefly when he was travelling in Nova Scotia a few years ago. He's a storyteller and a thinker and we meet up (virtually) by times in the realm of words, as storytellers and thinkers tend to do. 

Frank often reads my blog. And this past fall, he sent me a gift – an email which said, in essence: I see what you are doing over there. And I feel connected with it.

Frank saw me. 
And he told me that he saw me.
And I took that in. 
And it got me thinking.

Now, it's not that no one has ever seen me before, or never told me they saw me. And it's not that I've never taken it in before. In the past, I've even given some thought to the experiences of seeing, of being seen and my relationship with those experiences. But a new train of thought got sparked by Frank's email and has been bubbling away in my brain ever since (if you love mixed metaphors – you're welcome).

What does it mean to be seen?

This is the definition Google gives for regard:

Click here to visit this link for a larger, more readable version.

Check out the etymology from Old French. Regard basically has its origin in this idea: I've got your back. 

Regard is more than being seen. It is mattering to someone else. It is about meaning and connection; care and attention. Frank's email got me thinking in new ways about what it means to me to be seen and also to feel seen.

I didn't develop the habit of feeling seen when I was growing up. I was a latch-key kid. My busy parents separated when I was seven years old and then divorced. From there, I continued growing up in a family with more parents and step-parents than I knew what to do with. Each person was coping with a lot; I felt like I often disappeared in the midst everything that was going on. And frankly, a lot of the time, I felt pretty lucky if I was able to stay under the radar. I preferred to keep my head down, trying to avoid both conflict and disappointment.

Unfortunately, growing up in that environment trained me to notice people who were absent or pre-occupied more than people who were present and paying attention.

As I moved into adulthood, I became someone who noticed the people who sent their regrets more than the people who showed me their regard.

My approach to regard was twisted.

The people who didn't give a hoot about me often felt more important than the people who had my back.

I was better able to see the people who couldn't see me and less able to see the people who could.

I am just now beginning to understand the impact this kink in my personality has had on my life so far.

I could still spend days, maybe even weeks, running down the long list of the moments I can remember when I felt people didn't show up for me, whatever their reasons, and how I felt about it. I could talk about the amount of time and energy I have spent focusing on people who didn't give a damn about me – hustling for worthiness, as Brené Brown would say.

Husbanding those grievances is a familiar and well-worn strategy. But that way of looking at my story is losing its appeal.

What is becoming more interesting to me is this new lens that I'm developing, a new understanding, a new way of experiencing and valuing being seen. And along with that, I hope, new ways of seeing others.

Let me tell you a story.

Re-framing regard

In 2015, I did a 52-song project on YouTube. Once a week, I posted an original, previously unrecorded song. There were a few people who viewed every (or almost every) single song and often commented on them. All year long.

I was having a tough year, struggling with depression and a broken heart. That song project felt very vulnerable to me most of the time. Sometimes excruciatingly so. And it was also a lifeline, something that kept me reaching out week after week, to connect even when trying to connect felt agonizing or unlikely or pointless. And every week, those few stalwart people gave me the gift of seeing me. Some of the videos in that project got eight views each in their first week.* And I know who at least three of those eight people were, because they granted me the gift of saying: I see what you are doing over there. And I feel connected with it.

While the project was going on, I admit that I frequently struggled to feel seen. I mostly couldn't take it in. When a video got only eight views I would take it as a sign that I shouldn't bother, instead of realizing that those eight views, and – most of all – the one or three or five comments and acknowledgments were the most precious part of the whole process. And that I would be far better off focussing on them rather than on the people who couldn't or wouldn't see me or who wouldn't or couldn't acknowledge that they did.

The people who could see me were the ones I needed to take in. They were saying with their constancy and their encouragement:

I see what you are doing over there, and I feel connected with it.

I struggled to understand this at the time, but now I see more clearly.

I was being given mighty gifts of connection, of constancy, of love, of regard.

Those connections were pointing me in a direction where I need to explore and grow.

And now that I'm finally getting closer to where I need to be, I feel profoundly grateful.

Thank you.

I am really, really, REALLY taking our connections into my heart.

THANK YOU!

(Better late than never, eh?)

***
I'd love to hear in the comments your thoughts and feelings about the experience of being seen and/or seeing others.