This week I am going to dye a batch of fabric with indigo. I’m waiting for the right time. I’m waiting for the hours, blue hours, when it’s warm enough, when the light is good, when I can give the fabric the attention it deserves. It deserves care. This has been a bad week for care. Yesterday I realized I hadn’t slept more than 4 hours a night for nearly a week. There are things going on. I am sadder than I’ve been in decades.
Each immersion of cloth in the indigo bath, from which oxygen has been removed, each rest on the cedar bench for oxidization, these allow the dye to bond with the fabric. Linen works best for me, the dye penetrating its fibres, so that the colour deepens. Bonds of colour, bonds of affection: I work towards these. Sometimes the results break my heart.
Songs are like tattoos. Last week we were at sea. (I am sadder than I’ve been in decades.) This week we are working in our garden, writing, talking at length about the things going on. We saw Carmen on Sunday afternoon and came home in the dark. When I dye the cloth, my hands turn blue.
A slash of Blue — A sweep of Gray — Some scarlet patches on the way, Compose an Evening Sky —
I have a long length of coarse linen with a swirl of fish batiked on it, not well, and it must have been the end of the dye vat because the colour is very pale. I will bind it up, wrap it in hemp string, and hope to deepen the blue. Deepen the blue until it is the colour of my own sadness and then I will make something with it.
Note: the poem is Emily Dickinson. Also you might an echo of Joni Mitchell.
I was getting ready to leave Ireland but I was going to return, oh yes, to make a life with a man I loved. I didn’t know the song was a foreshadow. That I would meet someone else in Canada, someone I immediately knew I wanted to spend my life with. He felt the same. We knew that, yes, but we both had ties and had to figure out how to snip them in the most graceful way possible. And it wasn’t tidy. I remember we had an argument over something now forgotten and Planxty was playing on my old turntable and this was the song that sent me out into the night, onto Fort Street, to cry under the trees in front of my apartment. He followed and somehow we figured out a way to move ahead. Part of this meant that we agreed I should return to Ireland to settle, as best I could, my attachments there.
This morning I went out into the morning and everything is so new and green that I cried again. There was birdsong—Swainson’s thrushes and robins, warblers—and the lilacs coming into full bloom. The tree I always think of as the Bride’s Tree, a crab apple brought to us by John’s mother when we first moved here in the early 1980s, is also about to burst into blossom and it’s already loud with bees. It’s the tree the bears love in fall for the small sour crabs and I’m happy for them to eat them, although I don’t know why they have to break branches in their hurry to gobble the fruit.
It comes, the pain of old love, just when you don’t expect it. When you are walking around your garden, planning to return in an hour or so with a colander to pick dandelion leaves, lambs quarters, chickweed, and kale for a green pie for dinner, when you are full of joy for the richness of your life. (A husband who brings you your first cup of coffee in bed so you can drink it by the open window and listen to birds. Who is building new steps for the deck because the old ones might no longer be safe for you and your grandchildren. Who responded to your comment that the orchard bee houses are now fully tenanted by making another, bigger one. Who moved his chair last night because the bees were trying to find another little hole in the wall behind him.)
A phrase will come to you and you are reminded that you were cruel. Reckless. But on a May morning, cutting a jug of those crab apple blossoms, the lilac, a few strands of Saskatoon berry, you can remember and feel a little of that old pain as you recognize the shadows under the spreading trees. What holds the trees close is also joy.
And I wish the Queen would call home her army From the West Indies, America and Spain And every man to his wedded woman In hopes that you and I will meet again.
But something rustled on the floor, And someone called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air.
Last year I wrote a long essay about the past, about an artist who painted me and was more than a little obsessed with me. Writing this was prompted by a couple of things: I was sorting through a tall stack of the artist’s letters to me; and I wanted to find a way to truly think about that period by engaging a portrait of me that hangs in the stairwell leading from my bedroom to the first floor of our house. I walk up and down those stairs multiple times a day. The painting has been hanging there since 1993 when the painter brought to us as a gift to our daughter, who will perhaps one day want this in her home. (Not yet…) Last summer a friend helped me take it out of its frame (it had kind of been cobbled into a frame and I’d always meant to frame it properly) and because he is an artist, I asked him about the pigments and the composition. I’d pretty much finished writing the essay months earlier but his analysis allowed me to add a section which in turn helped me to understand something about the artist’s process.
This essay is out on submission right now and to be honest, I wonder if anyone will want to publish it. It’s personal. Does anyone really want to know about that stuff? How I was courted and manipulated? How I was a surrogate in some ways for the artist’s real love, his daughter? But I found things out and I also found a solace in talking to this younger self and listening to her side of the story. Which of course is my story too but for years I kept it (her) at a distance, Oh, that old thing, it doesn’t have anything to do with me now. Except it did. I have his side of the story, detailed in the stack of letters, as well as the three volumes (sketchbooks!) of formal declarations of his love and need.
Yesterday I was working in my garden, planting some seeds, tidying the greenhouse, lugging pots of lilies to the various decks for summer pleasure. At one point I stopped in my tracks because the little Merton Beauty apple tree in the vegetable garden was loud with bees. It had become unshapely with the years and John pruned it carefully this year, looking at the shape of the branches in air, as structure, as potential bearers of fruit. We wondered if that would set back its blooms and fruit but it has loads of flowers and the bees were visiting each one. It’s been given a new life, the tree, and in some ways I feel as though I was given something too in my work to understand the young woman in the stairwell, now cleaned and reframed. That time of my life has been reframed, in a way. There was so much I took for granted, so much I was willing to turn away from, to deny. And now I have been pruned of those illusions.
I see the haste of this work, the urge to put the young poet down on canvas, the firm line of the right part of my head. I see how he would have sketched with a brush dipped in black, a line here, and here, and here. My friend shows how the eyes are not symmetrical and they are the eyes I see in the mirror every day, not symmetrical, but these are not looking at me, not directly; they are implicating me in something I am only now discovering.
A day later, this morning, I come down the stairs early and look up to the blank wall. A small hook to hold the wire at the back of the frame, which has been dismantled, the painting resting flat in a safe place. Everything has been taken apart, dusted, looked at closely. I have talked and talked and talked. A blank wall, and somehow I don’t know where to look, whose eyes to meet. A line here, and here, and here, and on the face I see in the mirror, a line here, and here, and here.
Note: the lines of poetry at the beginning of the post are from “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W.B. Yeats. The passages in conclusion are from my essay, “Let A Body Venture At Last Out of its Shelter”.
Last night I woke in the dark and didn’t know where I was. Was I asleep in my bunk on the Aurora Explorer, the window looking out at floating jellies drawn to the light of the ship? But no. I was in my own bed with the deep blue quilt drawn up to my chin. We somehow made it home in record time after leaving the ship just after 2, driving onto the Comox-Powell River ferry minutes before it sailed. Then we drove down to Saltery Bay and joined a handful of others waiting for the Earls Cove ferry. I tumbled into my bed almost immediately.
I have to say that our five days in remote waters were beyond my expectations. Not an off-note, not an indifferent meal — and honestly, Kelsey surpassed herself with each dinner: miso-glazed sockeye; ling cod on a bed of quinoa risotto; tenderloin beef with prawns; chicken stuffed with tomatoes and pesto and draped with prosciutto; a final dinner of prawns from the traps the crew set out as we went up Toba Inlet on Friday, retrieving them on Saturday just in time for them to be cooked with Dungeness crab, scallops, little mushrooms, and garlic. Nice wines. Desserts I’ll never forget: chocolate mousse with caramel sauce flecked with flakes of sea salt; cheesecake with raspberry puree; crumble topped with ice-cream; lemon tart and blueberries; and beautiful pavlovas dressed with berries and cream. The crew were stellar. We were welcome to join the captain, Ron, in the wheelhouse where he pointed out waterfalls, a particular view of Mount Waddington glowing in the light.
Twice I swam in Bute Inlet, in waters fed by glaciers. At the head of the inlet, we watched the tank of Chinook smolts head off to a point at the Southgate River where the little fish would be released to make their acquaintance with the water, imprinting, some of them–the ones not caught or eaten or grabbed by the grizzly who was grazing on grass on the sand to one side of the estuary– returning to the river to enter into the cycle of eternity. The fisheries biologist and technicians brought up a glass bowl with 3 of the tiny smolts, their parr marks still visible, no scales yet, and I watched them as we learned about the project to enhance the run after a slide damaged the spawning grounds in Elliot Creek and the Southgate. I watched 3 small fish swim in clear water and I kept thinking there ought to be a ceremony for moments like that. Maybe my swims counted.
I didn’t know where I was last night but I know I dreamed of the beauty of chocolate lilies on the tiny island we stopped at so we could stretch our legs, the scent of wild onions underfoot, a feral apple tree blooming its heart out.
The nights were not quite as dark as I expected because a few soft lights remained lit onboard. The night I looked out and saw the jellies, we were as far from home as I’ve ever been, or at least it felt that way. It was dark enough. I thought of Bruce Cockburn, maybe I even heard him sing, as the night can do that if you’re lucky, funnel music into your inner ear. There were hours of night still to go and in the morning, warm cinnamon buns, good coffee, and water everywhere, green water, deeply mysterious.
Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light
I think I could live at the Brem River estuary. We’d been told to watch for grizzlies and it felt like a place they’d love too — long grass, the clean river. But I didn’t even see tracks in the sand that was as soft as flour. I could live at the mouth of Brem River, surrounded by mountains, Toba Inlet my view. We didn’t swim there, though earlier yesterday we stopped at Moh Creek and had the most beautiful dip in cold water, the beach dappled with stones the colour of butterscotch and ochre and clear white.
Four prawn traps were dropped yesterday on our way up the Inlet and pulled just now: dinner tonight. And Kelsey is in the galley making something wonderful for lunch, her playlist floating out into the lounge.
And when that foghorn blows
I will be coming home
And when the foghorn blows
I want to hear it
I don’t have to fear it
No foghorn at Brem River, just the soft sand, the water, the scent of new leaves, tangles of seaweed, the air as alive as I was, walking the shore.
Note: of course the song is Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic”
At 6 a.m., this was the view from my cabin. We spent the night at Southgate Bluff, right at the head of Bute Inlet. And now we’re heading down the inlet, with stops planned to pick stuff up, drop off other stuff. Yesterday, a brief swim at Purcell Point, the water cold but wonderful, and then we watched the 70,000 Chinook smolts leave the freighter for their immersion in the Southgate River. I’m on the top deck, drinking my second cup of coffee, and about 10 Dall’s porpoises just swam by. Mount Waddington was so beautiful in the first light, a little wreath of cloud around its base.
Overnight at Stuart Island and awake early as the boat negotiated a brief window in tide and current to pick up a truck with a tank of 70,000 Chinook smolts that will be dropped off at Southgate River at the top of Bute Inlet later today. (I am looking at the truck through rainy glass.) And now we are at Orford Bay for a delivery and we watched a load of logs tumble down into the chuck, where it was wrangled into place by a tiny boom boat, moving like a dancer in the green water.
Everything is so beautiful — the colours against the grey sky and green water, the lush forests, and the two grizzlies we see on a far shore, grazing grass, the cinnamon brown shoulders of the closer one, the dark logs. (I can’t photograph the bears with my phone camera though John took a couple of nice ones with his better camera and I’ll post them once we’re home.)
Coda, an hour later:
The biologists just brought a jar of smolts up so we could see them and they talked about their project. A gift on this rainy morning.
On a spring adventure, 5 days in the Discovery Islands and environs, on the Aurora Explorer, a freight boat with 6 small cabins for passengers. We slept last night at Hemmings Bay on East Thurlow Island after a wonderful dinner of strawberry, feta, and spinach salad, followed by ling cod over quinoa risotto and greens, with chocolate mousse drizzled in caramel sauce with flaked sea salt for dessert. B.C. wines. This morning we woke and sailed into the day with breakfast of fresh cinnamon buns, fruit, yoghourt, and (for those who still had room) eggs, sausage, potatoes, fresh bread…We were able to walk at Blind Channel and then we went up Phillips Arm to look at bears on the grassy shore. More adventures this afternoon and tomorrow, we will pick up freight –a truck carrying a tank of Chinook salmon smolts from a hatchery on Sonora Island and we will take them up to the very head of Bute Inlet where they will be released into the Southgate River, which is where they’ll imprint on their own transformation from smolts to fry. This freight boat is carrying diesel fuel, equipment for logging camps, coils of cable, a fridge full of amazing food (and Kelsey, from Malcolm Island, who makes these meals), 10 other passengers who share their stories as we watch the shore for bears, the water for whales, and the sky for rain. Which hasn’t fallen yet. (Fingers crossed.) One or two boats have passed us in the channels. I keep pinching myself that this is happening. That we slept in our bunks and woke in the night to big jellyfish drawn to the lights of the boat. That we had smoked and candied salmon for lunch, with every other imaginable form of charcuterie, cheeses, pickle-y things, and that this will continue until Sunday afternoon. Pinch me again.
On Monday, we’re leaving here for Vancouver Island, spending a night in Comox, and continuing on the next day to a little north of Campbell River where we’ll board a freight boat on Tuesday for an adventure. If you look at this map, you’ll see a number of inlets on the mainland side of the strait and we’ll explore a few of those. Here’s the description of our leg of the journey (the company offers two possible routes, aboard a 135 foot landing craft which carries heavy equipment and other freight to logging camps, remote villages, and other destinations):
She works her way up Discovery Passage into the maze of islands and mainland inlets, with possible stops in Loughborough Inlet, Cordero Channel, Phillips Arm, Stuart Island and Sonora Island. The Aurora Explorer then proceeds up spectacularly scenic Bute Inlet with stops along the way, possibly reaching the head of the inlet, where the Homathko and Southgate Rivers both empty into opposite sides of Waddington Harbour. The upper reaches of the inlet provide a vista of steep granite bluffs, numerous hanging valleys, cascading waterfalls, glimpses of the Homathko Icefield near Mt. Grenville (3109 m) and other glaciers in the surrounding mountain ranges.
I’ve wanted to see these inlets and rivers for years. And there’s no time like the present. No time like this one that is every other moment, because it’s also the container holding the past. The other day I was putting my swimming towels in the basket I use for taking stuff to the pool and I found myself marvelling at its construction (it’s one of those beauties from Ghana, bought for me by my older son and husband in Cache Creek in 2008, so of course when I carry it, I am carrying the dry air, the lunch we had at the Bonaparte Winery when it was just north of town, and the walk we took through Walhachin, pausing to look at an old concrete in a lot I thought about buying, a view of the Thompson River below). I thought of the baskets of Cueva de los Murciélagos in Granada, 9,500 years old, and as shapely and beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen. (You can see a photograph of them here.) Everything happens, and happens again, although the icefields are shrinking and the rivers drying up.
We will sleep in a small cabin (equipped, we are promised, with a flashlight and binoculars), lulled by water. The food will be excellent. I’m bringing books, a journal, and several warm sweaters. Some poetry. I’m remembering Tomas Tranströmer (from “Answers to Letters”, in: “The Great Enigma”, translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton) :
Time is not a straight line, it’s more of a labyrinth, and if you press close to the wall at the right place you can hear the hurrying steps and the voices, you can hear yourself walking past on the other side.
Note: this was posted last July and in the meantime, the 5th title in our novella (and innovative prose forms) program has been published. And it’s Anik’s book, Cabin Fever! When we were first discussing the possibility of creating a micropress to showcase novellas, we’d each written one and our experience with publishers was the same. They’d tell us they liked our work but they couldn’t possibly publish a novella! So I remember we smiled at each other over a glass of wine by our woodstove — she was visiting for a few days, enroute back to Amsterdam from Dawson City — and it was in that moment Fish Gotta Swim Editions was formed. We began with my novella Winter Wren, followed by Frances Boyle’s Tower, Barbara Lambert’s Wanda, and Jennifer Falkner’s Susanna Hall, Her Book. We intended to publish Cabin Fever as well but Anik kept saying, No, not just yet, until last summer as we ate spot prawns and garden salad and Reader, she said Yes. So we began planning immediately and now Cabin Fever is fresh off the press, ready for orders. In fact, we’ve shipped an entire case of books in the past week. If you’re interested in buying your own copy, visit us at https://www.fishgottaswimeditions.com/books-1
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I met my dear friend and publishing partner Anik See in 2003. She came to live in a cabin at Bargain Harbour and for the next two years, I saw her every week or so, sometimes more often. A writer, a letterpress printer, a world traveller (by bicycle; see her book, A Fork in the Road, for details of this), a chef, and a remarkably kind and intelligent woman. In 2005 she met a Dutch artist who won her heart and a new chapter of her life began, one that included moving to the Netherlands, having a child, working in broadcasting, teaching, creating podcasts, restoring books and manuscripts, and more. I see her whenever possible. In 2014, she came for a few days enroute back to Europe from a residency at the Berton House in Dawson City, and over a glass or two of wine by our woodstove, the two of us decided to establish a micropress to publish the occasional novella. (You can read about that here.) John and I flew to Amsterdam the next year for Anik’s wedding to the Dutch artist. And because of, well, life, we haven’t seen her since. Until Friday. With great pleasure, we welcomed her family for a couple of days. I remembered how much she liked Harbour suppers (because that was what Edith Iglauer called them)– steamed spot prawns, garlic butter, fresh bread, salad, a galette of fruit in season–so that’s what we had the first night, talking into the dark. When I see her, we just pick up where we left off. We cook food, talk, share books, ideas, and this time we got to celebrate her son’s birthday with a little party on Saturday night, setting the table under the vines with platters of Greek lamb kebabs, chicken with Sicilian salt and herbs, lemon potatoes, salad, warm focaccia with rosemary and flaky salt, a chocolate torte with homemade maple ice-cream. And as we talked, we made a decision about the 5th novella for our Fish Gotta Swim Editions. We’ll share details in a newsletter in October.
On Saturday night, after the birthday boy had gone to bed and the guest (Anik’s former neighbour at Bargain Harbour) was getting ready to leave, Anik’s husband, Walter Von Broekhuizen, said to me quietly, I made something for you. Come and see. If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you might remember I’ve mentioned some cedar rounds from time to time, cut from dead trees we had taken down last fall, victims of the climate emergency. (Western red cedars don’t tolerate the periods of excessive heat and drought well.) I kept thinking I wanted to make something with them. But what? I’m not an artist. I had in mind just organic constructions that would let them show their beauty, maybe supported in place by nets of old rope. I thought I might be able to “knit” the nets. I showed Walter the piles of cedar the other day and then somehow, without anyone seeing, he made this for me.
The rounds are braced to some extent by a helpful arm of chestnut. Walter showed me how I could use metal flanges if I want to secure the rounds for a time–eventually they will deteriorate of course and anyway life is ephemeral–but when I said I hoped I could somehow net some of them with knitted rope and add shells, he liked that idea. He also said, You can put things in the middles too. And yes, that will be something I know my grandchildren will enjoy thinking about. A birds nest, a special rock, the tiny skull of a shrew.
After we took them down to the Langdale ferry yesterday, John and I stopped for a swim at Trail Bay. As we walked back to the car, I stopped by the rock at the top of this post. It’s big enough for two people to sit on, looking out across the Strait. Two women maybe, talking about novellas, making a place for them in the currents of literary activity. We knew what we’d call our press at the same moment. Fish Gotta Swim, we both said at the same time. Because novellas gotta. They do.
...Theresa Kishkan 