Spiritual Walk

“Pink-Flowering Tree” DS

On my daily walk this afternoon I went to a different mailbox to mail a letter.  I passed an old log cabin, now freshly painted in a handsome dark brown.  As I missed the shorter lane turn-off, I found myself going by the ‘fantasy garden’ with golden deer, a bridge, and a brown lazy river with violet wisteria overhead.  The deer had lost their garish look now that the property had matured.  I had not been this way for a while.

I found myself offering a prayer for God’s blessing over them.  I prayed a short prayer for my own family.  No lengthy intercessions here, but had to ask for the strength to make it back home.  Yet for most of the walk, my mind is blank.  I did not force my sluggish mind toward a disciplined direction.  I was tired from the second COVID vaccine.  Somehow, I felt renewed as I arrived at my blue front door.  I felt clean and calmed.

The reflections of the walk were mainly about the number of times I had taken a walk to a mailbox in my life.  What else is there to do but to observe beauty and offer a prayer?  I find also that I will think thoughts that would not be a usual part of my day.  I also review my own memoir.  Today, a green pram, a baby carriage, entered my mind.  I remembered a time in my early twenties when I walked with my newborn daughter to mail a letter to my grandmother in Scotland.

My memoir is actually filled with my heritage.  I thought of our practice of letter-writing, especially that of my late mother, to her in-laws.  I appreciated all of the letters to and from Scotland over the years.  Now I write to my cousin, one of a couple of dozen people who have never left the land of their ancestors.  

She writes of the care of friends and neighbours during an accident and also during the pandemic.  In my neighbourhood, I say hello, but we prefer not to know each other.  I have learned distance over the years here in the mobile suburbs.  I am not sure if that can be reversed in Vancouver, the lonely city.  Maybe, perhaps, it can be done one smile at a time.

Ode to the Workers (a healing prose poem)

“Scarred Yard” DS

They don’t want to listen to what I want

They do it their way

They interpret and make decisions about change

Without consulting me

They do not capture my vision

I smile

They do not solve the problem and 

When I point it out 

In anger they charge me to fix

Their mistakes also

I frown

And then they do not finish

Nor

Do they clean up

They damage other things as they

Forge ahead with their own

Heavy-handed solutions that

Do not fit

I cajole

I correct

I reward

I stay in their faces

Or

Stay away from their places

Of violence on our property

A brief reality check

Acknowledges

A brief culpability

That disappears at invoice time

I threaten no pay

They warn

I pay

They go away anyway

And do not return 

Leaving me 

Holding the bag of mistakes

And hugely dented bank account

I resign 

They do not

Come another day

Ever

I rant

I lament.

Beside the Coupland Sculpture

Coupland Sculpture, Ambleside” DS

The leaf blew off my plate as I ate my lobster on a bun and arugula salad.  An oblong concreted fire blew a hint of gas scent my way.  A couple in front of my white clothed patio table to the left had the gas lamp lit and the unwanted heat blew toward me.  It was that kind of day.

The platinum “Tree Snag“ stood to my left as a monolith memory of the Coupland Conference I had attended on Zoom a couple of weeks ago.  As a writer and artist, like Coupland, but not famous, I felt grounded, at home here, snagged by a sense of celebration on another gilded occasion.

I have no profound words like his or huge art pieces.  My work is obscure and less articulate, more hidden but just as spiritual and passionate.  My eyes went to the grey feet of the sculpture, to the huge screws holding it there on the new Ambleside condo frontage.  Then I followed the silver up the rounded, truncated branches.  Was this large scale driftwood-like form silvered by the sun and tossed in by the sea?  I must look up his artist statement.

The young, tall, dark and handsome waiter is already annoyed at my choice of table.  It was not his choice of a small table in the shade.  It was a table for 4 in the sun and yet out of the way of unmasked passers-by on the walkway.  Perhaps he was aloof, perhaps I was overbearing with my menu questions.  He was also slow to serve and I was hungry.  

I also ordered a 5 ounce glass of Fitzgerald sparkling wine instead of the 8 ounce and later did not want another glass as asked.  I was just contrary.  In the end, my request for the check went unanswered.  As the sun had moved and the wind now had me buttoning my thin hooded jacket, I decided to stand near the table in the sunshine.  This was probably perceived, not incorrectly, as impatience, although my face was serene and happy looking at the view of five docked sailboats in a white row.

The bill was brought by another man.  The stay had turned from wonderful to – I want to move from here to the seawall right now.  I left a decent tip.  After all, his mood had not affected mine.  My mood, I hope, had not affected his.  I had offered to him; it must be great to work on the waterfront every day.  He returned an obligatory yes.  We were inscrutable to each other.  It is always thus.  It is always a gap of mild conflict here on a sunny windy seaside day.