Spilling the tea

Have I mentioned how much I love my local bookstore? It is one of my favourite places. I feel the same way about the owner, Alison, who hosts the bookclub I started. Yes, I started a bookclub with several local women close in age: one university professor, two painters, an illustrator/bookstore owner, and me. We have fun! Anyway, at the bookstore, Alison has a “leave a piece of art/take a piece of art” cork board and I find it very exciting (I find so many things exciting LOL).

The other evening when I was there, some small, jewel-like watercolour paintings caught my eye and I pleaded with Alison to allow me to take a gorgeous little tulip painting (I am never dramatic about anything, fyi, lol) with a promise that I would bring something for the board in return. She said sure thing and now I am the proud owner of a treasure. Alison told me that the artist is Fern Donovan. Well done, Fern! I loved the other painting you left there as well, but I have a particular fondness for flower paintings. Love your work and thank you so much for your generosity!

Taking this little painitng home, placing it on my bookshelf and admiring it made me think about another tiny jewel of art I own, made by Ruth Marsh, another artist I admire very much. That piece is a tiny bee drawing. Ruth is good. And they’re weird and I enjoy that too. When I used to use instagram Ruth’s account was one of my favourites. Their sense of humour kills me (I have told them this in person, naturally. lol). I was thinking about framing these two little works and hanging them together.

This thought led to another: When I paint in a representational style I make small paintings too! I also made jewellery for about a decade, and before that when I studied photography, I made tiny prints. I assumed I leaned toward small prints out of necessity at that time - the big photo paper was prohibitively expensive - but maybe it is a part of my aesthetic? I find that thought interesting in relation to my installation practice particularly because installation can be defined as “sculpture in the expanded field.” These kinds of contradictions tickle me. I do view my installations as jewel like, though, and I have made that connection in the past when writing about my work.

I find my life beautiful, abundant and satisfying in many way, but my rental situation is not one of them. It’s terrible. My landlord is an unreliable drunkard. He drunk texts me, drunk calls me, and shows up drunk at the house. He speaks in word salad, vacillates between trying to bait me into political debates and pandering to me with flattery. I despise being flattered and pandered to. I will not engage in a political debate with an unreasonable person who thinks they are right in all things. He is untrustworthy, does not follow through on the things he says, backpedals constantly, brags without reason, attempts to manipulate and thinks he is far more intelligent than he behaves/actually is. His words and actions do not align.

Yesterday, we had a confrontation. I had explicitly stated boundaries with him over and over again, even in bolded text in an email - he completely disregarded them, so I confronted him about it. He looked like he was about to burst into tears at any second and I believe this is due to so much heavy drinking. It wreaks havoc on emotional regulation. There was so much word salad and backpedaling that I turned and walked away in disgust. Back in my unit, I rage vacuumed.

When I spoke to my sister on the phone about the situation, after I thoroughly vacuumed my house (lol), she told me to “play ball” with him, but the problem is that I have played ball for the past six months and it has gotten me nowhere.

The person who lived in the basement is finally gone after being evicted months ago for smoking in the house, a violation of her rental contract, and having her son living down there, another violation of her rental contract. Her response to both things was to lie. But I had proof of both. The son acted out like an adolescent and I had to call the cops. I heard them laughing about it in the backyard after the cops left so I walked over to ask what was so funny and the son practically leapt over his mother to get all up in my grill. We exchanged words and I went back inside with a lot of insight about how they viewed me, like a rich bitch (that’s a stretch), how much they despised me and wanted to punish me “for getting them evicted.” Zero accountability or self-reflection.

On my first day at this house the basement-dweller came to the surface, a rare visit I would find out, to demand my wifi password. While we interacted I asked her not to smoke in the house. She assured me she didn’t, even though I had already noted that she did. The landlord asked me to share my wifi with her so I did and he and I split the bill. A few days later, I changed the password because she was smoking in the house. I changed it to NOSMOKING with some numbers and such. Within minutes of changing the password she was at my front door wanting an explanation. So I told her very frankly that I changed it because she was smoking inside and if she did not stop I would change the wifi password again and not share it with her. About an hour later she was smoking in the house again and I knew that I was not dealing with a reasonable person.

A few weeks later, I got completely fed up and changed the password again. She knew why I changed it, so she didn’t come herself, she sent her community housing case worker who threw a tantrum when I refused to give her the password, told me in a patronizing manner that her client did not smoke in the house, and then tried to emotionally blackmail me: She said that her client didn’t have data on her cellphone so if anything happened to her, I was directly responsible. I immediately called her on the emotional blackmail and said that I had never agreed to take on any responsibility for her adult client who was a stranger to me. I told her to watch herself because she was being terribly unprofessional and then I went inside and wrote a furious email of complaint and sent it to every single local social services/community housing organizations I could find the contact information for on the internet. I copy and pasted it into boxes on websites and submitted it. I even printed it off and sent it snail mail.

A week later, the case worker was gone and a new one was in place and they were attempting to rehouse the basement-dweller. My landlord did nothing while this was happening except create drama and whinge to me about the case worker and healthcare worker being mean to him and making him look bad. From my experience he doesn’t need help with that. He drunkenly texted me and if I texted back he would drunkenly call me. He was going off the rails emotionally and I had to talk him down numerous times and reassure him. My patience was endless and that is a major feat for me. He has reached the end of my good graces and I am now searching for a new place to live, once again.

It is a waste of my energy dealing with someone who has lost touch with reality and who simultaneously has delusions of grandeur. He erroneously takes the credit for finally having the basement-dweller removed. I’m so tired. I am having dental surgery tomorrow and I just want a safe and secure place to live where I can work in peace and not have to take on emotional labour (and more) for other adults. I have already applied for a new rental house. I want out. Wish me luck!

PS - Happy birthday bro! Love you! XO

A deluge of swallows

This morning, around 8am, when Poppy and I were walking along the Washbrook, we encountered a deluge of swallows. Hundreds of black swallows with white stripes alongside numerous Juniper Titmouse(s?) (titmice?) suddenly came downstream, flooding the air above the Washbrook, sticking to the stream as path.

It was delightful and I stopped and watched as more and more and more came toward us. Some of them landed in the small trees on the banks of the Washbrook and stopped to take a minute before they flew on. Later, at home, the internet told me that these were likely migratory swallows since I live on the migration path. It said that they were likely headed to hang out in some bullrushes - there were plenty to choose from where they were headed!

I got excited and started sprinkling birdseed on the nearby grass but they were not interested. LOL!

After the last swallows sped swiftly by, I saw some of the shy crows who shadow me on my walks saunter over to nibble on the seeds.

There are Canada Geese in the fields adjacent to the Washbrook as well. I once saw a Purple Finch along there. On another walk I saw a Sharp Shinned Hawk. Twice, a Bald Eagle. It’s a bird rich location!

Nerves

I am feeling frustrated. I don’t mean to complain and I am generally a pretty happy person, but this pain thing is bringing me down. I have been experiencing nerve pain in my shoulders, arms and hands from the curve in my spine. I know this because I have been researching it. Yes, it seems I have a new research hobby.

I experience this particular pain when I sit at my laptop at my dining table and type. I think it is from the way I hold my arms. I have been sitting and typing a lot. I am working on my dissertation proposal presentation for my defence and I promised my massage therapist that I would not lie on my couch and type, which was my former habit and my shameful confession (haha). I am enjoying the research, i like the work, but the pain is distracting. It’s like I have bees in my shoulders, hands and arms and sometimes they sting, leaving a burning, buzzing, throbbing pain.

Maybe not bees, I like bees too much to think of them that way. Probably more like wasps or hornets. Once, at Ben Eoin Beach Campground, as a child, a friend stepped on a hornets nest hidden inside a rotten log by accident. We were both stung over and over again as we ran away.

The frustration lies in enjoying the work, wanting to work, but being in too much pain to keep typing. I do, also, write long hand. After a long day of typing, sometimes my arms and hands hurt too much to write longhand. This is bumming me out and I am not yet sure how to deal with it. I am still formulating a plan. I am trying not to let it stress me out. I will figure this out.

On a different note: Happy Martin Luther King Day!

And on a different different note: Last night I was texting with my bro in Sausalito (love you bro! you da best) when I had an etsy order FROM SOMEONE IN SAUSALITO. I thought that was pretty fun and funny. I have lots of clients in California, but this was my first order from Sausalito. Naturally I told the etsy buyer the story in the card I placed with their order. LOL

Rest Easy David Lynch

Yesterday, David Lynch crossed over. An artist with an unmistakable style and vision and a fascinating mind.

I fell in love the moment I viewed Blue Velvet (1986) starring an exquisite Isabella Rossellini. This was during the beginning of my BFA at NSCAD, the end of the 90s and early 2000s. The slide library (yes, slides!) had a little room off of it that contained the film holdings. A treasure trove of film gems I had the delight to plow through over the years while I gorged myself on film directing, screen writing, set decoration and film history classes.

Wild at Heart was another film that grabbed my attention early and immediately. It is such a quotable, unforgettable film that I have revisited many times over. I adore Lynch’s work for its strangeness and wildness. I have also always enjoyed Lynch’s cameos in his work and the quirky, unassuming characters he created for himself.

I have gone back to Twin Peaks, in all its forms, over and over. I’ve visited that world when in need of comfort and I recently read that Lynch felt he was expressing his personal version of spirituality through those series/films. That makes me love them even more and want to dive back into that world of his once again. I also lived, for a few years, in the Pacific Northwest, and so that stunning, eerie landscape is familiar to me in a most welcome way.

I have been through his oeuvre, many times and there are others that keep me coming back. I watched Lost Highway for the first time while high on hash and could not stop laughing at the sax solos, although I find that movie haunting and unsettling.

Mulholland Drive (2001) was released while I was still in art school. This film, alongside a few other enduring notables from around that time - The Sea Inside by Alejandro Amenebar and The Diving Bell and Butterfly directed by painter Julian Schnabel, remain embedded, together with Mulholland Drive, in my memory for some reason. Perhaps it is the dreaminess, elegant sensitivity and painterly qualities of these films that group them together for me. Or the unknowability of amnesia and total paralysis that permeate the threads of these stories like a fever dream.

Once, on my second visit to LA, back in 2012ish, I requested to drive, with a friend, the length of Mulholland Drive to experience it in its fullness. LA, its extremes and eccentricities is a place that I hold dear and can relate to, just as I can relate to David Lynch and his brilliantly webbed brain.

David Lynch offered us the inside of his strange and beautiful mind and I hold this gift close. Particularly now that he has crossed over. I do hope he sends us messages from the beyond. If anyone would/could, it would be him.

Rest easy David Lynch. Reach out any time. XO

Damn the destruction reaped by those fires.

The pain in my body

I have had migraines and chronic pain for almost as long as I can remember. In elementary school I had a million brain scans and tests done in an attempt to figure out why I was having so many migraine headaches.

I had terrible posture when I was young. When I was in my early twenties and living in Halifax, I went to my doctor about my back pain and he had me bend over and touch my toes so he could see my spine stretched out. I can remember him saying: well look at that. You have a c curve between your shoulder blades. That was the whole conversation, as I recall. He prescribed me massage therapy.

I have done massage therapy off and on, sometimes painfully and intensively, for my entire adult life. I have had problems with my shoulder blades winging, most of my adult life.

Nobody ever talked to me about scoliosis. My doctor may have used the term “scoliotic curve,” but it was never expanded upon. Nobody ever said: you have scoliosis. Until now.

I have scoliosis. I have a thoracic c curve that causes me chronic back and neck pain and migraines. It also causes numbness and tingling in my extremities and tightness is my jaw. My left leg feels clunky almost all the time.

I have been experiencing waves of rage and other emotions since I found out that I have scoliosis, have essentially always had it, and nobody thought it was important to talk to me about it. I have tattoos on my hands and arms, and I have been treated, in the past, as if I was just looking for narcotics from walk in clinic doctors. I don’t even like to take pain killers except in extreme conditions. Massage therapy is always my first choice.

It is fortunate that I encountered yoga young, as a teen, and took up the practice. I don’t do it every day, and there have been stretches (no pun intended, lol) of time when I didn’t do it. But it is what I have found feels best for my body so it is a practice I always return to. The massage therapist I see, at a local physio clinic, has prescribed me a series of exercises, some with weights, and stretches that I have incorporated into my yoga routine, which is more regular once again.

And still I hurt. Every day, all day. Sometimes it wakes me in the night. Sometimes, after hours of doing research and writing at my laptop, writing longhand in my journal is painful because of the way I hold my arms and I have to stop. Sometimes my hands ache, like they do right now.

Living with chronic pain is debilitating for so many reasons. For me it is very distracting. I find it difficult to sit in one position for a stretch of time, and I am in extra pain afterwards. My ADHD (another adult diagnosis) does not help with this situation. It is also just distracting to always feel pain is your body, it is hard to concentrate.

The other thing I find is that it is exhausting. I am a person who has a tremendous amount of energy (again, see ADHD), and I have found ways to harness that energy and make it work for me. But sometimes it’s hard to keep up with myself and in the past I have found it difficult to rest. When I did rest, usually at the point of burn out, I would lay on the couch in some awkward position and read novels for hours on end (I still do this, the awkward reading I mean). No doubt, not so great for my back.

I have been learning over the past few years to give myself grace and to let myself take the rest I need when I need it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but it’s necessary and helpful. And now, I am going to have to learn to give myself grace for the pain in my body, and take the rest I need, not push through when it’s really not necessary, be more mindful about the way I treat my body. Take the pain killers or muscle relaxers if it gets too much to bear.

I don’t want to lose my mobility as I age, and I am now at an age where I really do need to think about that, considering my spine.

Stay Safe and Strong LA <3

I keep pacing around. I find it difficult to sit down. I’ve been thinking about Los Angeles and the lost Palisades, its beautiful coastline now blackened timber sketches where buildings used to be. I am trying not to let it drive me to distraction but frankly it’s been hit and miss.

I have a vision I hold in my mind of myself riding an aquamarine beach cruiser along the beachfront at Will Rogers State Beach last March, stopping to visit with purple lupins and yellow sour grass. A smile on my face the entire ride.

Aquamarine is one of my favourite colours. That bike was waiting for me in my live/work space when I arrived at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, LA County. I took its colour as a good omen. A smile from the gods who continuously call me back to LA. (Maybe I lived there in a past life?)

Beaches are one of my all time happy places. I am from an island, after all.

Dan Kwong, a resident artist who has lived at 18th Street Arts Center for 30 years, posted this fire map showing 18th Street in relation to the fire on his intsagram. I took a screen capture.

I hiked in the Palisades and saw the wildflower superblooom. Other hikers stopped to chat and when they found I was not a local they told me how lucky I was to witness the super bloom, and they told me all about the flowers. I wore a large sun hat purchased at a local Sally Ann after sustaining a bad, blistering sunburn during further joyous biking along the Venice boardwalk and canals. (*See tangent below)

There’s a freedom I feel in LA that I only have in a few other places - Berlin comes to mind directly - it’s big and expansive. There is a singularity to it. When I am in LA, I feel at home with the legions of other oddballs and eccentrics that populate that place. It’s a city that’s called to dreamers for ages now. They showed up and stayed for the weather, among other things. Even the ones who failed to grasp the star they were reaching for.

I love Angelenos for their warmth, their diversity, their kindness to a stranger like me. I love them for their pride in their city. I love them for letting it all hang out. I love them for the Los Angeles Central Library and the myriad pleasure it brings.

I don’t even know how to drive. I exclusively use their public transit and it fuels my love to mingle with Angelenos in this way. I have had countless beautiful interactions with a cross section of locals who have been stunningly generous with me.

It breaks my heart to see you facing this destruction and loss.

LA, I could list the ways I love you for days.

Stay safe and strong.

FIRE RELIEF DONATIONS of supplies can be sent to Bike Oven, 3706 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90065, United States

They are looking for:

feminine hygiene products

food

clothing

emergency supplies

cosmetics

pet supplies: leashes, food/water bowls, food, etc. There is currently a leash shortage in LA.

personal hygiene products (toothpaste/toothbrushes, etc.)

first aid supplies

blankets

UPDATE: Tom from 18th Street Arts Center sent me this google doc with lists of items needed and addresses where they can be dropped off or mailed.

He also sent along these google docs of Go Fund Mes assisting Displaced Black Families and this one for assisting local artists.

__________________________________________________________________________________

*As an aside - years ago, 2014 I think, I got a bad sunburn on the single sunny day in San Francisco - I am not throwing shade, it’s just true - at Golden Gate Park, sitting in the sun, soaking up the rays and drinking delicious iced coffee with my youngest sister, Elizabeth. I looked like a boiled lobster later that afternoon, after we had flown down to LA and checked into our Inn on Venice Beach. We took a walk along the boardwalk immediately and a stranger scolded me for my sunburn. She looked me up and down - I am a pale, freckled, redhead - and bluntly exclaimed: You should know better than that!

It still makes me laugh when I think about it. I do know better, it’s true.

Another amazing and memorable interaction my sister and I had on that trip was on our way up to Dodger Stadium to see a ballgame. Elizabeth, an even paler redhead than me, was 20 years old and wearing short shorts, showing off her long, pale legs. A guy tried to sell us tickets on our way up the hill. We politely declined and after we passed him, he shouted out something that has become legend.

He said: Hey! Chicken legs! Get a tan baby! DAMN! YOU NEED A TAN!

I don’t think we reacted in the way he expected. We both simultaneously, immediately doubled over with laughter. We were so weak we fell to our knees and laughed long and hard. He just stood there shaking his head at us. It was pure gold.

Particular pleasure

Yesterday I had the particular pleasure of heading to Inverness, over on the west side of the island, to see artist Sameer Farooq give a talk about his work at the Inverness County Centre for the Arts. I travelled to the west coast of Unama’ki with a lovely group of smart, ambitious, curious, compassionate, passionate and interesting women. People who are actually working to make this island a better place for everyone who lives here. I felt quite fortunate to be counted among their numbers for the day.

Sameer Farooq is an artist of Pakistani heritage who was born and raised here, in Unama’ki. His current work grapples with concepts of repatriation/decolonizing archives/museums and bread as a cultural and social form of sculpture and site of exchange/collision/cross over/kinship as well as nourishment for the body. His artist talk was smartly, beautifully mesmerizing and I felt drawn in, riveted for the duration.

I was already familiar with Sameer’s work because he was introduced to me on the internet by a mutual friend and colleague when I was still living in Montreal. This was the first time I met him in person and my impression of him was as a warm, gentle, generous, kind person who made you feel seen and welcome when you engaged with him. The success of his social practice makes perfect sense.

Sameer was long listed for the Sobey Award and I definitely think it was well deserved! Big fan of his work over here!

After the talk, which was well attended, I began to realize that I knew a lot of people in the room and began talking and catching up with all kinds of people I hadn’t seen in an age or so. I didn’t even have time to speak with everyone I wanted to before it was time to leave! It was a pleasure, even for a socially awkward introvert who doesn’t often enjoy socializing.

Unama’ki/Cape Breton is a funny place, so it is not totally surprising that Art Icon Joan Jonas was sitting front and centre at Sameer’s talk! Philip Glass visited the exhibition by NYC’s Jeri Coppola, currently on view at the ICCA yesterday and we were speculating whether or not we would see him at the talk on the way up (we didn’t).

After the talk we headed to the beach and hit the beachside snack bar to fill our bellies which were rumbling from looking at so many photos of bread and bread making!

It was a magnificent day.

The art of survival in late capitalist ruins

During the pandemic I received a Canada Council grant to begin work on a project called The Art of survival in late capitalist ruins. For this project I began examining survival from an array of perspectives, and with an eye to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

The very bottom tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy, which is usually depicted as a pyramid, is “Physiological needs: breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep.” In this time of late capitalism, the very baseline, foundational requirements for any human to live their life is not viewed as a given. It is not viewed as a baseline for existence that should be available for everyone and people who can’t meet those needs on their own, for whatever reason: mental health issues, trauma, disability - are viewed as immoral and so, disposable.

Capitalism creates a hierarchy that places the wealthy at the top and graces them with a halo of morality. The rest of us down here form the base in layers that are visibly crumbling around us the further down you go while those above us seem blissfully unaware.

I live surrounded by ruination. It is an everyday reality for me: The apartment building on the left side of my building is a crumbling dump and the house owned by an elderly couple on the right side of my building is actually falling apart. Pieces that were hanging have been pulled off in chunks since I have been living here. There has constantly been either a dilapidated porch structure falling off the rest of the house or a pile of rubble immediately next to my footpath since the day I moved in. There is a house with a caved in roof down the street and I think someone lives there.

Houses here in Unama’ki are actually still relatively affordable. There are small dumps around that you could buy for $100k and fix up. When I was looking at apartment listings a few days ago I also viewed the real estate listings and I noticed that there are small apartment buildings around, like the one I live in, that are listed in the $200K range. So you don’t actually need to be wealthy to purchase something, yet there is so much poverty here that even a small dumpy house is out of reach for many people. Including me. Being an artist is my calling, but it has not been a lucrative career, more of a feast or famine situation. I am intimately familiar with precarity.

So theoretically you could buy an apartment building like the one I live in for under $300K. So why are the rents so astronomical? Why are we paying the same kinds of sky high rents here in this falling down town with terrible, sub par infrastructure, that we would pay in a city with conveniently placed business and good public transit? And if we are already paying ridiculous rents for decent apartments, why are they trying to raise them even more? Greed.

People from off this island looking for real estate investments are attuned to the situation here and they come here to exploit the people who are already, and historically have been, trying to scratch out an existence. It is truly appalling, inhumane, exploitative behaviour.

Last night the new landlord told my upstairs neighbours, once again, that they have to move out. He told them that if they don’t he is going to sue our old landlord. He tried threatening and bullying them to intimidate them into complying. I have been helping my neighbours advocate for themselves because English is their second language and I cannot imagine how stressful having to navigate an eviction situation in a foreign country must be. I think he is targeting them because the language situation makes them more vulnerable

I know I will be next. I know that we are legally in the right here and are technically protected, but we are not protected from the stress and anxiety that this is creating in our lives. This apartment used to be my sanctuary and now I don’t feel safe/secure here and I feel unsafe leaving Poppy here on her own (I am very protective of her because she was abused in her early life). I am worried that the situation will continue to escalate with the new landlord. He seems to either not know or not care that there are laws and regulations around being a landlord that he is required to adhere to. I suspect it’s the latter, because we have informed him and it is his job to inform himself.

UPDATE - Just as casually as he was trying to evict my neighbours, the new landlord texted them to say that he will honour their lease. I wonder if he consulted with a lawyer and realized that what he was trying to do was illegal. Who knows! Fingers crossed he doesn’t try to lean on me now!

A snag

On Monday of last week, the sale of the building I live in closed. On Wednesday, July 31 at 7:25pm the new landlord texted to say that he is “the new owner of the home” and he “would appreciate it if (I) found a new place to live.”

There is a housing crisis here, as there is in many other places in Turtle Island/North America. It’s historic, it has been ongoing for a long time now, at least a decade or more. This new landlord is an example of a direct contributor to this housing crisis. He bought this building specifically with the intention of kicking myself, and the three Chinese students upstairs, out of our established homes so he could spike the rent and exploit other international students and locals. This is a trend and I find it appalling.

Fortunately for my neighbours and I, our previous landlord was a good person with foresight, and she provided us each with a six month fixed term lease before she sold our building. We will all have a place to live until January 1.

I had a look at the apartment listings available in my area online. There were two pages and I didn’t see a single dog friendly, let alone pet friendly, listing. I do believe, despite the odds, that Poppy and I will find a new place to live and be ok, but I don’t think this entire scenario is ok.

I think this is a deeply problematic, as well as a disturbing trend.

Avocado ink

I always eat avocados through the winter and I save the pits to make into inks. I let them dry on a tray on my window ledge and collect them, husk like, in a bowl. Last time I made avocado ink was shortly before I went to California for my residency. I made it with alum and it was a sort of peachy pink. This time I added baking soda ( I used an Australian recipe and had to google bicarb soda, lol), and ended up with a magnificent rosy purple.

Last time I ordered supplies, I treated myself to a set of glass beakers and stainless steel funnels. I had to hold myself back from announcing it in the group chat I have with my sisters. I did know nobody would care and definitely would not be as excited as me. Hahaha! I have used this new equipment the last few times that I made ink and it has enhanced my experience indeed. I should do a group shot of my supplies because I find them beautiful. I did include them in some process shots.

I bottled up the inks and brought them to On Paper Books where the Ocean Vuong book I ordered, Time is a Mother, was ready and waiting. I listened to him read from it and talk about it on an episode of On Being with Krista Tippett ( I also love Poetry Unbound with Pádraig Ó Tuama, omg). The episode is called A Life Worthy of Our Breath, and it was the first I had heard from Ocean Vuong. I had seen his novel in Drawn and Quarterly (my fave in MTL when I lived there), but I had not read his poetry. I love the sound of his voice, especially when he reads his poems. The tenderness and tough truths. With tendeness he stares down The Bull, because he has to.

I am savouring it early in the morning with my first coffee. Only a little at a time so I don’t devour it whole.

Patatas

After the last frost I decided to take some potatoes I had in a bowl with big eyes on them and cut them into pieces. I took the pieces with me on a walk to the RZ with Poppy one morning and I planted the potato eye chunks in an unused garden box. Potatoes are currently underway!

Rose petal jam

My access to fresh, free roses and rose petals is a privilege I openly acknowledge and do not take for granted. I am a lucky human in many ways and the roses rambling wild in the fallow garden and riparian zone are one of those ways. Recently I foraged petals (with a crow supervisor of course) and made rose petal jam. I’ve made rose petal jelly in the past, but this is a different beast. The rose petals stay in this jam, you do not make a rose water and then drain off the petals, and they become kind of jelly like and translucent.

I used a variety of petals for this jam, about four different kinds and only a handful were a deep pink, most of petals were a very light pink but the jam became a vibrant, deep pink once I added the lemon juice to my solution. It is magical to watch the transformation take place. I was taste testing this jam while I was making it and, let me tell you, the flavour is also magical.

I used this recipe, but I had liquid Certo, so I used half of a Certo gel pack.

Yum!

Inks for sale

I now have a selection of inks - copper oxide, turmeric and black walnut - available for purchase at On Paper Books!

Herbs and roses

Poppy and I headed out on our walk early this morning. I brought along my bonsai shears in a mesh bag with the intention of bringing home herbs and roses. I was not at all disappointed! There were plenty of each.

While I was picking herbs this morning I noticed that there is also a whole crop of wild strawberries, a big patch, I had overlooked. I was just picking them again, early yesterday morning and missed these big ones! I also harvested rose petals yesterday morning, with a rose panna cotta recipe in my mind.

If it is not still raining I will harvest a few more strawberries on our walk this evening. It started plopping down big fat drops just as we were getting ready to leave the fallow garden with our bounty.

We hurried home, but not too quickly to throw Horace, one of our crow friends, a few peanuts. He is the messenger of the gods and we must honour him duly. I’m almost certain that is the way he views it. Haha!

I have decided that I am going to make a herb butter and a strawberry butter for my garden party and pop them in the freezer til it’s time. I harvested some thyme flowers after spending some time (no pun intended) reading about them online yesterday. They were one of the first things I gathered this morning and the smell was pleasant - light, fresh, mildly floral and herby. I’m very curious about their flavour. I have bookmarked a recipe for a thyme flower infused liqueur that sounds interesting. I have already made a thyme infused simple syrup and the flavour is quite nice.

A few sprays of fragrant roses. There are a couple of varieties growing in the fallow garden right now.

Wild Strawberries

I cannot believe that it is already about two weeks into strawberry season and I haven’t rhapsodized about strawberries yet. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest times of the year. I feast on these magical berries daily at this time of the year and if I want strawberry shortcake twice a day, say, for breakfast and again for dinner? This is perfectly acceptable during strawberry season, encouraged even. I just finished eating a bowl of macerated strawberries with cream. One of my favourite treats at this time of year!

The town that I live in is graced with strawberries, liberally peppered with the wild variety. When I was a child I ferried these teensy delights from their cute little vine directly to my mouth, next to the lion sculpture, under the crabapple tree, on the waterfront.

Over the duration of the spring, I watched the little leaves and vines and flowers emerge and develop with anticipation. The time is now and I found a big patch near the fallow garden. This morning, chilly, damp and grey, with an impatient cattle dog in tow, I picked wild strawberries. These will go into the freezer to be used for a tasting event I will be hosting in October.

The pleasure of foraging bouquets

I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Foraging bouquets, I mean. Having a fallow garden and urban wilderness at my disposal feels like a rare gift to my inner child and in this, my favourite time of year, I am blessed with a constant supply of fresh flowers. I take advantage, but I don’t take too many. I make sure that there is enough for others who would like to partake, and the pollinators too.

Today, I found a peony growing in the fallow garden. I could only see one tight fuchsia ball of a bud, and I exclaimed out loud “peony!” with excitement. My first instinct was to leave it there for everyone to enjoy, and then I remembered. In May, there were some gorgeous pink tulips that tapered to purple at the base of their petals. They were elegant. One day I stopped to take some photos before doing my round of the riparian zone and then heading through the other side of the fallow garden, the luscious secret gardenish space where you enter through a small gap in voluminous hedges. While in that space, I saw a woman pull up in a blue neon and get out of her car with a bucket and a shovel and a purpose in her step and I knew just what she was going to do. And she did. She dug up the tulip bulbs, pulling up and just tossing aside those beautiful, elegant tulips. I gathered them up and took them home to put into a vase and place on my bedside table. I felt sad and a bit angry about the tulips; as if the place was slowly being stripped of its magic.

I decided to take the peony before somebody else saw it and dug up the plant for their own garden. Since that tulip day, I have noticed many holes in the fallow garden that I hadn’t noticed before and figured that people have probably been carting away the plants for years.

I took the peony and I cut a few sprigs from a surprisingly polite honeysuckle and fashioned them into a loose arrangement on my dining/work table. The sun is streaming in and falling directly on the flowers and it is a pleasure to behold.

A lil beauty and delight

Wisteria vinegar

Roses in the fallow garden

A rose for my bedside. It smells magnificent.

A Proustian sense memory

My brother recently came back from a trip to Japan. He sent me a little package of souvenir gifts he picked up for me while he was there and one of them was a box of incense. He purchased the incense at a stall directly adjacent to a beautiful shrine he visited with an enormous buddha that was cast in bronze in three pieces and then brazed together. This same incense has been burned in this temple for centuries.

I burn incense every day and it is a ritual that I enjoy very much. I find joy in the thought that I am ritualistically filling my home with an ancient scent that has also been ritualistically burned in an ancient Japanese temple for centuries. That, to me is a beautiful thought.

Recently, my enjoyment grew. As soon as I opened the box, I thought the scent was familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Last week I put my finger on it. Before the incense is lit, it smells to me like old spice cologne. And now when I open the box and light up a stick I am transported to dating boys in high school in the nineties and I find that thought very amusing.

Little miracles/simple pleasures/small joys

lilacs

Earlier this morning, I was listening to an episode of the podcast On Being where Krista Tippett was speaking with the writer Ross Gay. The episode is an older one, from 2019, and is called On the Insistence of Joy. In it, Ross Gay was discussing his daily practice of finding joy and the importance of finding pockets of joy during troubling and difficult times. I felt my heart swell in my chest and I knew just what he meant. And I could tell he knew what he was talking about, hailing from Youngstown, Ohio and now living and working in Bloomington, Indiana. Two places, like this one where I live, struck hard by deindustrialization but located on America’s notorious rust belt.

It felt pretty dreamy to be listening to this podcast while walking with Poppy, feeding the crows, and foraging for feral flowers in the fallow garden. The florals I foraged for culinary purposes also looked pretty dreamy when I got home so I did a little photoshoot on the dining table in my living room that doubles as my home studio.

PS - Krista Tippett and Ross Gay were discussing his 2019 book, The Book of Delights. I haven’t read it yet, but I intend to!