something a little different

Tomorrow is the big move day...oyoyoy
Nothing to say about it yet of course, it hasn't happened, so here's a little story I wrote instead.

The grass and the sky were white from July, faded from the intense heat of our summers. Our small town, with an overwhelmingly vast and simple landscape with only the flatness like endless space, and the occasional, unreachable cloud. People could only come out comfortably in the cooler night, when there was nothing to do but gather in backyards with neighbours for drinks, and more drinks.
And for us kids, times got shifted too. Cereal clanged in bowls across the town at five in the evening, playgrounds were crowded by dusk. We ran through ravines with our dogs guiding the way in the darkness. Our minds raced and our realities crumbled.
We became invincible.
So we rode our bikes down steep hills forgotten in the sliding winters. We conquered lakes, we neglected meals.
We were untouchable, and filled with ideas and astronomical plans.

I remember one summer, the one between sixth and seventh grade, my brother and I challenged ourselves to raise enough money to go to Disneyland the following autumn. We began passing through every swinging wooden gate to every backyard, asking the middle aged loungers for their empty beer cans. We attached a wagon to our dog Beatrice, and she trotted alongside us, wheeling the bags of bottles and cans.
When it got really late, more and more would be close to passed out on their dirty lawn chairs, eyes half shut, and fingers only loosely around their final cans.
It was easy. And at the end of each week our mother would take my brother and me to the recycling depot to put the cans and bottles in organized rows. We always sang, “Trash into cash! Trash into cash!”


The sign at the travel agent office that sparked this undertaking read “$299 per person for 3 days in Disneyland, kids fly free.” All we needed was $299 for mom and a few bucks extra for us, for cotton candy and a souvenir. But by the end of July we’d already found ourselves with close to $600 in our pockets.

When the second month of summer hit, the heat broke through, penetrated us, and filled our veins with lethargy whenever we were far from the lake. And since we already had more than enough money for our trip, we stopped riding our bikes from house to house collecting beer cans, and took to refreshing our thirst, and rotting ourselves out, with too many big gulps instead.
We had two hundred extra dollars to blow, and I’d never known that kind of cash before. It seemed unimaginable, since I could easily make my five dollar allowance last a week and a half.

But soon, somehow, it evaporated like everything else that summer, and we found ourselves spending the remaining $400 dollars too, on nothing, small somethings, instead of Disneyland.
Our mother made a big fuss about our wasted opportunity, but we didn’t mind too much at the time because I was 11 and my brother was 13 and he told me that we were probably too old for that Disney stuff anyway. We ignored when Mom said we’d regret it later.

But soon we all became distracted by the excitement and the dread of the approaching Autumn. The daytime heat and sunlight were beginning to lose their daunt. We became busied with different kinds of things, sharpening our pencils and writing our names on our notebooks, while the days became windier and the clouds snowballed across the low sky.

On one of these cooler afternoons, I was watching the clouds move grandiosely, when I noticed Beatrice, our dog, howling and whimpering nearby.

“Cut the racket, Bea, there’s nothing there. It’s just the wind rustling and the leaves crackling.”

But she came to my side slowly, and fell beside me in a heavy clump.

My God.

I’d never been so horrified. I screamed and ran to my brother for help. I was nowhere near capable of leading the solution to such a situation! But my brother became equally as terrified when he came, and so we called Mom to get off work early and drive us to the vet.

We were told that Bea had liver problems and needed treatment right away. The treatment was $400 and my mother said, “can’t you give a discount to a single mom?” and this made me embarrassed, especially when the vet said no he could not.
I remembered the money we had raised and wasted. I cried right there in the waiting room, and felt guilty for spending that money on nothing when it could have been used to save Bea. The roles reversed and it was now me embarassing my mother as I cried out, for all the waiting room to hear, that I hated money, and I hated myself, and my brother too.
But Mom told me to be please be goddamn quiet, with clenched teeth, and then just put the bill on her visa and we brought Beatrice home the following day.

That was the day before school started, and the weather was still warm but not too warm, and everything was going to be fine. How could I forget that we were invincible? And I fell asleep just fine.

But when I woke, my mom was on my bed and she touched my cheek and she told me, “Sweetheart, Bea died last night”. I was still half asleep, but I cried until I was completely awake.

That was the first time I realized the sadness of feeling powerless over a situation, compared to the agonizing realization that in some situations, everyone is powerless.

the end

hometime

It's been strange to be home. It's been hazy and unfocused the majority of the time, difficult to grasp. It seems to me that space can be as linear as time, especially when you're moving around a ton...or maybe space just latches on to time and follows its linear path in my mind.
But going back to places that I've spent certain times of my life at is like walking through a live stream of memory. What I end up seeing around me is the hazy love child of my memory of the place and what's actually there. It reminds me of dreams, when you know who everyone around you is, but physically they are nothing like how they appear in real life.
Actually, now that I'm writing this out, it doesn't really seem linear at all. It seems like every place is a big mess of everything that it has ever been or will be, and the more times through your life that you go there, the more you can see all that is there, from all time periods.
whoa okay that got kind of far out, but what I mean is that I don't find traveling back in space any less awe inspiring than traveling back in time.
I'm getting weary of all this space travel though actually (let's keep using that term because it's nice to sound like a galaxy explorer every once in a while). I'm thinking of putting some roots down. If Calgary treats me well I'll stay there for some time. Travel is romantic, but it certainly can be lonely. And in the end, a potted flower really is less appealing to me than a tree with sprawling, thirsty roots...Don't get me wrong, I will be a nursing tree, moss and flower covered, but I would like to keep my roots for a while, go to journalism school finally.

I found a nice quote in the introduction of a book I found at my grandparents house. It reads as follows:

"Growing up is like entering a jungle where some of the larger creatures look alarming and possible man eaters; and most of the smaller ones- like insects- go unnoticed. As one grows up, the jungle gets denser and denser and so, most likely, do you."
-The Countess of Ranfurly

I figure, if everyone's an animal, I think I'd rather be a tree. So wish luck to my roots! I will update in a week or two about how the settling in is going.

lots of love
Laura

oh and merry christmas and new year and things

Ooph it's been a while!
I'm still here in Wishart, though sadly I only have three weeks left here. I've decided to go home for Christmas afterall..I always come around...and then I will be living in Calgary for a few of these winter months. I'm nervous to leave this community and go back to the city, but I'm excited at the same time. I look forward to meeting a new community of creative young people, and to dance parties, and to nearby wine, and to having friends over for dinner, and to wearing highheels. And I can bring my new skills with me. I can still bake beautiful breads and sew myself skirts and can whatever's in season. Yes, I look forward to all these fast things, though I will miss the nightime walks in the dark...with only the stars providing light! and making me feel as if the road I'm on is the only thing strung through the galaxy like this, like a ribbon.
But Calgary will be fresh and keep me excited until late spring or so when I plan to head east. There is an old style maple syrup farm that does all the collecting by horseback in Quebec so I will probably be there around May to help with the main harvest time. Then I'm thinking of heading over to Nova Scotia to work with this family to learn how to make artisan cheeses.
Then after that, oh who knows! I've been thinking of going back to France and Italy lately. Maybe that will be a fall project.
Oh! I forgot to say! Tara's dad and I are doing a documentary for SCN about the outsider's view of Saskatchewan. There will be shots of the community and of me exploring old houses and fields, and then my thoughts and ideas will be dubbed over it. I'm also writing the music for it so that should be fun. I'll let you know when it's airing in case you're interested.


Okay, here is a little video from a week or so ago. It's of a pond down the street and some wagon wheels that I found. It's gotten quite a bit colder since then, but still not below -15, so that's nice. Yesterday they cleared the snow off the pond down the street so that we can start skating! I can't waitttttt



miss you all,
and hope to see some of you in Vancouver at Christmastime
xoxo
love
Laura

"This one's for you Floss"

 


 



 




 



 

exploring an old house

 

Though my surroundings no longer include galleries or venues, I find myself abundantly inspired. What I come across in these small prairie hamlets seems to be the essence, and holds the heart, of what so much modern culture attempts to capture. I feel what I witness here is living truth, that has grown from the beginning all the way to what it has become. It is not a contrived construction, based on an idea of something fashionable, over aware of its boxed in persona.
Wishart does not emanate an "old fashioned" feeling of community and values because it has fabricated an imitation. It is pure remnants of history, simply slower to fade than elsewhere.

 

When I roam the abandoned houses and ancient tricycles and beds, I see completely unpretentious scenery. It holds no awareness that its beauty relates to a romanticized ideal. It lays open and raw, in honest gorgeousness, rooted in the lives of those who have passed.
The wood on these old barns has not been skillfully sanded to look 'rustic', for example, but rather has been brushed for decades by cows searching for greener pastures. For years it has seen harsh winters and fatal droughts that have faded and broken its wooden panels.

 

What I am trying to get at, in my convoluted way, is that despite the lack of common displays of culture out here, I have never felt so inspired. I feel that it is finally life's original truths inspiring me, instead of replicas of replicas of replicas. Everyday my eyes frame a beautiful showing for me and I am forever grateful for the quiet in which I am able to absorb it.

Here are some pictures and a video of an old house I found. This is a very old one, without much remaining inside, and it is in southern Saskatchewan not in Wishart, but it is beautiful nevertheless. I will also do some videos of the more crowded abandoned homes here in Wishart soon.
For now, I hope you are all doing well. I miss you very much.

 



 

 

some more photos...

 

 

 

 


 

videos

just a tiny picture post

I just love all this family truck cruisin' and choke cherry picking. I've decided not to leave here for a while, I just can't, at least until the New Year. We're fixing up the empty house next door for me to live in and there's already a drum set in the living room (we started a band!) and we're setting up a painting studio in there too. Jeff's going to teach me to throw pottery, and Tara's going to teach me to sew, and the winter is going to teach me to love wood stoves and long johns.
This is a short post because I need to run to the cafe to help out the lunch rush, but here are a few pictures. The first couple are of Jeff, Freya, Ruby and me on our way to pick berries at the other farm, and the last three are Freya, Iso, Ruby, Chuck and me relaxing in my trailor.

xo
hope you're all doing well

 


 


 


 

Wishart, Saskatchewan

I have only been here for four days but am overwhelmed with where to begin this post.Everything works differently here. Doors are seldom locked, seat belts in the bench seat of the trucks are forgotten. Many things are borrowed, found, and personally invented or constructed instead of needlessly bought.
The father of the family, Jeff, bought his pottery studio from the town for two dollars, for example. And the mother, Tara, views her cafe more as a volunteer service to provide the town with a cafe (the quiet downtown strip has only a handfulof operating stores) than a financially profitable investment of her time. I have never witnessed such a strong community. Here it seems to be the residents who truly run the town. Meetings are held frequently and actually bring about change!

 
I've been learning so much. I've been seeing the freedom that comes with living away from cities; of having nowhere nearby to buy too many things, and no policemen in town. It's amazing to see people successfully governed by community and shared values.But I've also been learning to harvest, make jellies, juices, syrups; and I'm learning to make salsa and extract honey from combs, and ride a tractor.
And I'm learning to skim the top of the bucket of raw milk to get thick cream for my coffee, and the kids are teaching me to run everywhere and use plants for lipstick and laugh to the sky, on my back, with kicking legs.

 
They are sweet, sweet kids.
Two days ago I found that Freya, the oldest, had put a vase of sunflowers on my table and taped one of her paintings to my wall. They borrow my scarves to tie around their necks or in their hair while they take me by the hand to show me this or that. And Freya will braid my hair, and Iso brings me pieces of fresh honeycomb oozing and dripping with honey to share. They bloom with imagination and patience and it's inspiring.
 
But there's really so much that I don't know how to cover it all, or what to pick to elaborate on. Do I write about riding on the back of the truck with the girls, our feet dangling to the dusty ground? Do I write about the living skies that make me look up like a country dweller on a visit to New York City? Do I write of the stories of the town's legendary characters that are spoken around the dinner table, or maybe the abandoned houses sold for fifty bucks that are still filled with books and ointments and wood stoves from the thirties.
All I can say is that everything here inspires me, yet calms me. I feel nuzzled into nostalgia and am appreciating my grassy knees and dirt dusty sweaters. I will write about things with more detail and focus in a little while I hope, if I ever become less overwhelmed by this intense beauty and community.
 

I hope you are all doing well.
If not I recommend a trip to these prairie fields!
xo
all my love
Laura

 

 


 

b.c.'s little nugget

We woke in late morning to fill ourselves up with mugs of creamed coffee and warm, velvet raspberries. The afternoon held a wash of clouds high, dripped with sparse rain, but we laced our boots anyhow, and donned our hooded coats to explore., explore.
We let the dogs lead our path through the tall, sun bleached grass, along the ridge of the mountain. We passed the sway backed horses, the home built by the hands and eccentric ingenuity of her father, the small orchard, all the way to the lookout from atop a nearby hill.
Framed between two trees, we looked out to the far off river that rushed through those layered mountains.
what a sight!



It can be hard to grasp so much transient and passing landscape though, as I travel through. The present can feel like an object held so close to one's eye that it becomes ironically blurred.
But I'm grateful for those rare times when I am able to separate and view my current experiences as a whole. It makes them more tangible and more beautiful to me. Life can suddenly gain a quality similar to nostalgia, since it is allowing glimpses at simplicity and wholeness, like our way of grasping the enormity of our pasts.
It's just wonderful.

xo

to the country

I do not value one thing over another, but rather the freedom to satisfy my desires in their dance through opposites. I do not believe in deciding on likes, just to box them in to constants in my life. That seems as naive as placing a bloomed flower in a glass case with the expectation that it will continue in its perfection despite its lack of rain, dirt, sunlight.
Happiness doesn't seem to be found in the isolation of what we think we want in our lives and from ourselves, but the realization of the exuberant life that flows from the romance between all opposites.

At this time in my life the city has bloomed and fallen, so that now a change of season is required to harvest my future blooms. I do not argue that I love or long for the city more than the country, or the country more than the city, but I am grateful for the opportunity to ride these tides out to sea as much as I do to shore.
I pray to never feel posession and control over what makes me happy, as it would surely only weaken, if not kill, all these gifts that are powered by the circles of life.