Standing in the shadow

 

Photo by Canadian photographer Andrew Yee in Toronto

I told the Resident Fan Boy I'd scout ahead for a view of the partial lunar eclipse, seeing as we'd gone up prematurely the night before. 

Out on the roof before 9 pm, unmistakeable, the shadowy red/black orb with a gleaming white-gold top.

I texted: "YES!", seconds before our hall neighbour suddenly appeared in the bright rectangle of the doorway.

"Can you see the eclipse?" she inquired.

I gestured excitedly to the south-east, just beyond her viewpoint.  "Are you kidding? Just come and see!"

(To be fair, it seems most people aren't sure about their compass directions.)

As she texted and phoned her parents, the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter arrived, and I guided them a little further along the fenced walkway, where there was a gap between two trees.  Younger daughter gasped.

About half a dozen people turned up, with their phones alight, alas, but they soon turned them off.

As the western horizon darkened, the stars pierced the indigo sky overhead. Younger daughter murmured, "I'm looking for Orion."

"Oh, that's a winter constellation; you don't see him in the summer."  I pointed to the north-east.  "See that 'W'?  That's Cassiopeia."  I turned to the high west.  "And that's the Big Dipper.  Can you see the handle?"

We waited for the peak of the eclipse, the stars multiplying and burning brighter. Then the RFB and younger daughter, shivering a bit in their summer tops, withdrew. 

Wrapped in my fleece jacket, I leaned on the narrow walkway's rather rickety railing, gazing eastward at the shadow of our planet across the moon, and listening idly to the small mob of relatively youthful friends mis-identifying the constellations.

Waiting in the wings

 While "dead-heading" the plants on Demeter's balcony yesterday morning, I couldn't bear to clip this blossom quite yet.  It looked for all the world like a falling angel, supported, however briefly, by four cherubs.

(Yes, there are four.)

Things change

It was my first attempt to run down to the shops on an errand, when I spotted the two neighbourhood boys strolling up my street, clad in almost identical black teeshirts with roomy black trousers billowing out from their long legs.

I've seen them several times over the past year; one of them lives in an apartment building around the corner, and I've seen his pal at the ancient glass entry door in the morning, before they head out to middle school.  (I've also seen them hogging the courtesy seats on buses and scattering ice cream packets on the sidewalk, but, heck, thirteen is thirteen.)

That's the thing.  They don't look thirteen this late summer afternoon.  They've shot up a couple of inches, and their shoulders have broadened.  High school for them, this year, I think.

Then I discovered I'd left my wallet behind, doubled back, and decided to seek a cooler way into the village.  The sun was just bordering on uncomfortably warm, but the shadows were deliciously pleasant, with a light breeze wafting up from the strait.

So I nipped around another corner, and skidded to a halt.

For years, the City of Victoria has covered the utility boxes with historical photos of the surrounding area: landmarks -- such as hospitals and schools -- shown as they were decades before, and houses that are no longer there.

This is startling different, and the reason for it is what had been there before:

That's Joseph Trutch, the first Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, and on at least one list of "The Ten Worst Canadians in History", for his reprehensible policies toward indigenous peoples.

I had an inkling that the former utility cover wouldn't last long, so snapped this photo in 2022.  

That was the spring that Trutch Street changed its name.  The original idea, I believe, was to rechristen it "Truth Street", but then it emerged that the Lekwungen word for "truth" is "Su'it".

It's pronounced something like "SAY-it".  For over a year, the voice prompt on the #7 bus dutifully announced it, until a few months ago, when the name of the bus stop was changed to "Fairfield and Chester".  To be fair, that's the closest cross street to the actual stop.

Blossoming

Oh, I love younger daughter's watercolour paintings.

I know I'm her mother.  They're just so lush, and light years ahead of anything I can manage.

Younger daughter's art lessons ended yesterday, for another summer.  She's been taking them with the same teacher for the past dozen years, with a few exceptions for logistics and pandemics. 

As she left, she embraced her teacher.  The Resident Fan Boy told me the teacher seemed a little surprised, but that younger daughter scoffed, on the way to the bus stop:  "I always give her a hug when lessons are over!"

It's a rare thing just the same.

Just like her paintings.

Summer and smoke

This morning, for the first time this year, I hesitate, and decide not to crack open the windows.  There is a growing wildfire near Sooke, a community west of here, and while the city is bright with summer sunshine, I feel the dryness in my mouth that signals the presence of smoke, something that has become sadly seasonal here.

My mind drifts back, like smoke, to the two summers when my mother was a "hostel parent".  These were the summers when I was 7 and 8; Demeter had discovered that an affordable and comfortable summer holiday could be had, if she took over, for a few weeks, the running of one of the smaller and more remote international hostels in the great Albertan parks of Jasper and Banff.

I have about half a dozen memories of the hostels and enough time has passed that I can't readily distinguish which memories are of Jasper, and which of Banff.  I remember an early morning breakfast and seeing my mother drop the corpse of a mouse into the wood burning stove.  

There was a creek running by one of the hostels, where Double Leo Sister and I would play and paddle in the afternoons.  We were equipped with emergency whistles and told to blow on them if we needed help.  At the shrilling of them, Demeter would come running, banging a pot, to scare off bears, only to hear:  "Wasses, Mummy!!"  (We were terrified of being stung.)  By the end of the summer, we had become the girls who cried "Wasses", and Demeter decided the bears could have us.  (I've told this story before, haven't I?)

Demeter, questioned this summer, can only remember "Coral Creek".  There is a Coral Creek Canyon, quite far to the southeast of Jasper - and Demeter believes the hostel was in the southern part of Jasper National Park.  However, there is also a Corral Creek to the east of Jasper, past Hinton, Alberta, and another Corral Creek, nearly at Banff and less than five kilometres south of Lake Louise. Perhaps this other Corral Creek was the location of the Banff hostel where Demeter was a hostel parent.  None of these places appear to have hostels now.

Nothing left but distant memories.  I'm pretty sure that the Jasper hostel was where we were the summer I was seven, because my father came to see us there, and he left the family the summer I was eight, although I was never told.  

The second hostel was, I believe, near a railway track, because a family with girls roughly my age came to stay, and we children were at the railway track when a train came roaring through.  Our rather feather-brained dog, a poodle/Scottish-terrier cross, stood still on the tracks, gazing at the oncoming train, as it blasted its horn.  Too terrified to try to retrieve her, I tried to run in the other direction to avoid seeing her crushed, while the other girls, held on to me.  The dog sprang to safety with seconds to spare.

Demeter was called a "hostel parent" because of the youth of the visitors coming through, often in cycling groups.  A largish contingent came from New York City; they were loud and lively.  I was furious to be banished to bed.  For years, I remember a song they'd sing after dinner:  Hey, jig-a-jig, kiss a little pig, follow the band . . . . My husband's a baker . . . is he/ All day he bakes bread, he bakes bread, he bakes bread, and at night he comes home and (expectant pause) drinks tea!!

The implications of the pause zoomed right over my eight-year-old head.  I didn't know that the song is at least 300 years old, and was far filthier.  The cleaner version I remember turns up in the 1976 television movie Sybil, which starred Sally Field and Joanne Woodward.

 Toward the end of this second hostel summer (I'm pretty sure), Demeter had the bright idea of taking six-year old Double Leo Sister, and eight-year-old me on a spiralling hike up and around a mountain. The gravel road climbed in an ever-upward curve, as the sun beat down, and we wore out.  I've seen the pictures Demeter took that afternoon.  We looked weary.  We never found what Demeter sought: the fire look-out station at the top.

This week, Jasper National Park and the town of Jasper itself is aflame. I probably visited the town at some point, but my only memory of it was passing through it by train, when Demeter, Double Leo Sister and I moved to British Columbia. I was in my bunk half asleep when the conductor passed, calling for everyone to set their watches back an hour for Pacific Time. I may have thought of the hostels before drifting off, like smoke.

Ankle-biter express (write of passage number fifty-five)

 "Oh, no-no-no-no-no...."  I breathed, gazing in horror out the bus window.  Two days in a row, I'd escorted Demeter to medical appointments, the latter being a dental appointment that lasted over an hour.

We'd been thrilled to just catch a bus bound for home, securing courtesy seats with a gap to keep Demeter's walker out of the aisle on a relatively uncrowded bus for a late weekday afternoon.  

Not quite this bad

The bus turned up the incline on Burdett Avenue, and lined up at the stop outside the Starbucks were two dozen seven-year-olds in day-camp teeshirts and yellow vests, intending to return to the community centre with a grand total of three supervisors.  In the grand summer tradition, exactly one supervisor went to the back of the bus with the youngsters, while the other two stayed at the front of bus, calling directions while the kids hung ineffectually from the dangling loops intended for adult standees, and clutched at Demeter's walker.  

I caught the eye of one of the minders and said, firmly:  "My mother has a walker.  She will be getting out at Cook and Fairfield."

"Cook and Fairfield," the minder repeated, a little dazedly.

Looking with some despair at the aisle, a sea of little yellow vests, I rang the bell just after the Vancouver stop and raised my voice:  "Lady with a walker getting out at Fairfield and Cook!"

I could hear the message being passed to the front, where at least half a dozen adults, who had been unfortunate enough (or foolish enough) to board behind the ankle-biters, were crammed beyond the yellow safety line.  The driver called her acknowledgement and about a dozen people of varying sizes poured out on to the sidewalk to allow us out.

As I helped Demeter step down backwards, I heard the driver yell:  "NO!  You cannot get on!  These people are all getting back in!  This bus is FULL!"  She smiled reassuringly at us, and I thanked everyone.

This was an improvement on the day before, when a couple (old enough to know better) leapt ahead of us like a pair of gazelles, and claimed two courtesy seats, leaving only enough room for Demeter to sit and clutch her walker close.

I'll bet they were American. 

Tree lines

The heat wave of earlier in the week has receded into a lovely, temperate summer morning.

At the end of the block ahead of me, I see a tall elderly gentleman holding a green garden hose and directing the spray around the base of an ancient tree on the other side of the sidewalk from his house.

As I get closer, I call cheerily:  "Are you giving the plane trees a chance?"

He pauses, and seems to turn in slow motion.  "The trees all down this street are stressed."

"I know.  There have been pieces of bark dropping in chunks for months."

He shrugs.  It seems to take an age.

"Since I'm out here, it's something I can do..."

On my way back from the coffeehouse, a young woman brushes by me.  She's wearing a tan like something she has slipped over her head before donning her carefully coordinated clothes.  She probably started to dress about the same time the old fellow started his spraying.

Rich in irony (and full of vitamins)

 

During the past year, I've come to see the resemblance between cyclists and wasps. 

I'm not talking about the commuting kind, or those out for a Sunday ride; I mean the jock kind. 

 Our local coffee shop is prone to morning infestations of cycling enthusiasts. They're usually clad in yellow and black; they have hard helmeted heads; they tend to swarm; they buzz -- and they're rather annoying, to be honest. 

During the three months or so when indoor dining was forbidden in British Columbia for what the provincial government called a COVID "circuit-breaker", I found myself huddling in the morning chill at the outside tables, and forced to share space with the wheeler-dealers, who clustered on the patio and talked "jockularly" about their equipment and injuries. 

Once, a couple cautiously mounted the front steps and half-whispered to me: "Have the cyclists gone?"

 "Well, it's Monday," I replied, cheerfully. "They usually turn up on Tuesdays and Fridays." 

"They're just so loud..." they said, in a normal volume, and went to get their coffees.

Particularly galling aspects of sharing space with jock cyclists during a pandemic: a) being athletic, they think they're immune, and hence not likely to social distance; b) if they do practise social distancing, it's only with each other.  I had the opportunity to observe this latter phenomenon several times during the "circuit-breaker".

For example:  One morning, the patio was thoroughly "infested" when I arrived, so I strategically selected a table equidistant from a large cluster of cyclists socializing in the road-side blocks of seating, which have become endemic during the pandemic.  

A forty-or-fifty-something lady with a short blond ponytail poking out of her helmet called out to a gentleman sitting at the crowded table.  He rose, approached her, and they settled on an appropriate distance between them for a prolonged chat, calling over the space between them. Neither of them noticed that they were standing right next to my seat.  Apparently, I didn't count.

I got up, and changed chairs, putting my table between us. This also escaped their notice.

I wasn't listening in to their conversation, but they were socially distanced (from each other, at least), and they were cyclists (and hence, loud), so I did hear some of what they said. At one point, they were discussing a mutual acquaintance who - and here there was some grasping for the correct phrase - "needs something in the way of social graces".  I bit my lip, busying myself with my journals.  It's not often I get such an irony-rich experience.

After more than ten minutes of this long-distance call, Blond Pony Tail bid farewell, and circulated some more, finally riding off with a gal-pal -- on the sidewalk, of course.  I could hear her gears:  clique-clique-clique-clique...

With the relaxation of restrictions, I can now enjoy my mocha and danish indoors, with a nice wall separating me from the wasps.  I can still hear them, but it's more of a comforting buzz.  Winter, alas, will likely bring them indoors.

A sucker for a sunset

We've been praying for rain.  However, it's August in Victoria.  It's unlikely to rain much before the end of the month.

And even less likely after a sunset like this, brief as it was.

 

There goes Jupiter; here comes Mars

One thing I finally managed to do after years of just missing, was attending a bit of the "B-film Festival" at the Cameron Bandshell this past summer. The festival originally showed honest-to-gawd B films, but has evidently found that family-friendly classics and action films draw the crowds, so I settled into my hard bench to watch Some Like It Hot.

This was a good choice because I've seen it many times before, so could slip away in time to catch a bus home, because downtown Victoria is a wee bit creepy on a Saturday night, and I was on my own while the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter visited elder daughter in Ottawa for Chamberfest.

It was a clear night which meant it got cold very quickly, and I caught a glimpse of a shooting star spitting to the south, and a bird of prey circling uncomfortably close to the blue heron nests next to the clearing.

At about 10:25, just before Tony Curtis and Marilyn Munroe got into some heavy necking, I crept from my seat and felt my way nervously around the dark duck ponds, rather wishing I had the nerve to stop and star-gaze. Good thing I didn't because my bus came five minutes early and fifteen minutes later, I found myself crossing a nearly deserted Yates Street, and there was Mars, hanging red and clear above the schoolyard.

As I turned south, Jupiter shone silver to my left.

I trotted home to the apartment I'd carefully lit before leaving, and missed my family, while drinking in my solitude wistfully.

It wasn't until the morning that I discovered the mosquito bites. They were clear and red too.

The isle is full of noises

With the coming of September, we get odd cloud formations, catching strange shadows. I look out the window and see green and grey, with splashes of gold, which are either patches of sunlight, or the first of the yellow leaves. I think back to the earlier part of the summer, when I was locked out of this blog, but free to walk out. Two beautiful outdoor art experiences come to mind.

One is from a rare rainy evening in early July, before St Swithin swept the showers away. We watched The Tempest on the grounds of Camosun College, under a mushroom cap of grey clouds, as the Garry Oaks swayed and rustled, giving atmosphere to Prospera's (yes, a woman playing a woman) spells, and to the tempest itself, which opens Shakespeare's play.

Caliban crawled across the ground, a cross between a jackal and a spider, then racoon-like, bellied under the low platformed stage and didst painfully remain there for a good ten to fifteen minutes.

A young deer wandered across the lawn behind the actors, and clambered up the volcanic rock into the brush.

I felt six raindrops, but no more. As the sun, visible only on the edges of the mushroom cap, sank in the north-west, a handkerchief chunk of broad rainbow hung on the southern horizon at intermission.

The next day, we headed down to the Cameron Bandshell in Beacon Hill Park to hear Dixie jazz -- but got The Choir and The Chorus instead, two non-auditioned singing groups under the same director. They sang Sarah Harmer, Radiohead, and a host of Indie Rock songs -- adapted for choir -- including one of my favourites, "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox.

As the music hummed and soared, a shower of tiny golden leaves drifted over the audience. I looked down and saw two in the crooks of my arms, so took them in my fingers and made wishes for my daughters.

Above our heads, dragonflies zoomed like tiny Sopwith Camels.

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

Echolalia

Some time after I cross Rockland, I start hearing the music.

It's a male voice singing in a swooping, sad sort of ballad. It sounds like he's being accompanied by a trombone; I don't know how likely that is. The music seems to be coming out of someone's backyard, but fades as I pass, only to issue out of a garden gate. The melody, what I can make of it, swings around houses, first on the right, then the left.

I realize, as it echoes from a balcony, that the performer is far away, perhaps Beacon Hill Park, or at Ocean Point, or the Inner Harbour, or even in Centennial Square downtown. This is a feature of a summer evening in Fairfield; I used to hear eerie echoes of concerts at the Cameron Bandshell while standing by my front gate on Collinson Street.

Perhaps the concert will still be going if I head into the park, I tell myself.

I walk through the ancient arch of maple trees on Chester Street, hearing the song ricochet, and then a voice seems to say, "Thank-you."

But in the park, I hear no music, and the sun is sinking goldenly into silence.

On the logs where the turtles sunbathe during the day, a long row of ducks are grooming in preparation for bedtime.

A sign informs me that an old tree is deceased and diseased, and will be taken down. I touch the rough bark and whisper goodbye, before going to catch the bus home.

Corn fed

A lively gentleman with dark skin and an American accent has been enjoying various conversations with friendly strangers while sitting on the cushioned bench that lines the outside of the patio at Moka House. By the time he's winding up his third conversation, this one with an older gentleman at the table next to mine, he's negotiating for Silver Rill corn, to be delivered to him at the outdoor piano at Oak Bay. (You can't get Silver Rill corn in a store, you have to head out to Central Saanich.)

Still rhapsodizing about Peaches and Cream corn, he spots me dissolving into giggles, and pushes his palms up on each side: "Can you believe this?"

I can.

The summerside

Everyone talks about summer being over, even when it doesn't officially end for at least another three weeks.

This is the time when Ottawans steadfastly put on their autumn clothes, despite the humidex -- just as they don open-toed shoes in late March to walk through the slush.

However, we're in Victoria, which never was that clothes-conscious, probably because we're not that seasonal.

I've been inside with a miserable cold for two days, but there are lovely views out the window, but not this one, which is a few blocks away.

A complex tapestry of smooth silk

I really didn't want to go out last night, and as usual, when this happens, I ended up being so glad I did.

Elder daughter works for the Ottawa Chamberfest, so we have season tickets, of course. Still jet-lagged, I clambered ponderously up into the balcony of Dominion-Chalmers United Church, the sanctuary glowing golden in the early evening sun of midsummer to hear a quintet specializing in early music called Cinquecento. I imagined they might be something like the King's Singers.

Well, not quite.

Five men duly appeared below, in dark but casual suits with open-necked shirts in muted shades of blue, green, silver, rose, and purple. They passed a tuning fork like a cigarette between them, opened their mouths and the most full and beautiful notes flowed out and filled the church.

They were singing, mostly in Latin, pieces by 16th century English composers: Tallis, Byrd, and Tye. All the pieces were ethereal and lovely, but I particularly liked a Tallis Vespers (or Compline?) prayer Te lucis ante terminum (sung in two different settings, at different points of the concert) which begins with the voices singing plainsong before splitting off into complex skeins of colour.

The English translation, which says in part: ". . .From all ill dreams defend our eyes/ From nightly fears and fantasies/ Tread underfoot our ghostly foe . . . ." had a certain appeal for me.

I'm still a little bit in outgoing Victoria mode, so at intermission, I struck up a conversation with the fellow in our pew, whom I'd noticed drinking in the music with eyes closed. It turned out he's in a choir, and he had interesting observations about how the quintet spent the first three numbers subtly adjusting to the scope and acoustics of the church. Remarkably he had not heard of the 40 Part Motet at the National Gallery. (Gee, I hope it's still there.)

I don't often stand for standing ovations, because I think Ottawa audience stand for pretty well everything. I stood this time. They gave an encore of a 16th century setting of Ave Maria.

It wasn't this one, but it's the only video I can find of Cinquecento in action. It was recorded last year. It's beautiful.

A pillar of fire

While waiting for a Chamberfest concert to begin at Dominion-Chalmers United Church, I glanced over from my seat in the left gallery, and saw the evening sun catching the ornate plllar.

The last house-sit

There's a last time for every house-sit.  Usually, I haven't known it at the time.  Over the past sixteen summers, I have house-sat at about ten different addresses.  The houses have become my home over the weeks, before I surrender them back to their owners, hoping for another invitation to keep their house secure, the plants watered, the pets alive, while having a retreat and some elbow room in my daily visits to Demeter. I've usually been invited back, sometimes four more times.

Yesterday, I moved through a snug, but surprisingly spacious bungalow, playing a game with myself that I call "Removing the Evidence".  I systematically try to remove every clue I've been there, so that the owners can return from their trip, slip into a clean bed, and not notice that I've ever been there, apart from the fact that the plants are green and blooming.

And I said goodbye to the rooms as I trundle my suitcase to the front door.  This time I know.  It's the last time.

Mandala sidewalk

In my years away from Demeter, three crosswalks in downtown Victoria have materialized in a whimsical way. One is your standard rainbow sidewalk - we have one in Ottawa, too, on Bank Street, which is kind of the gay downtown. Another is a colourful assortment of puzzle pieces near a games shop. This is my favourite: a frame of mandalas around the intersection at Fort and Broad.

Yet another placeholder

This is where I was yesterday.

Because we don't have a car - and I don't drive - I had never been here, despite living in Victoria over half my life. More tomorrow.

Hat trick

The Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter returned to Hades yesterday, leaving me here, for only the third time in seventeen summers, alone to savour rather more solitude than I'm used to.

In a way, it's intoxicating. Despite devoting a section of each day to Demeter, I am largely free to go where I will.

In a way, I'm rather forlorn. I enjoy my unfettered state, yet I find myself looking longingly at families wandering together through the streets of Victoria, aware as I am of the griping about fatigue and hunger that is the inevitable byproduct.

So I find myself remembering a snippet of sweet memory from about sixteen years ago. Elder daughter, who was about nine or ten at the time, needed a summer hat, but was now old enough to resist. I grabbed a moment in a shop to have her try on a few, the time being limited by how much her younger sister could stand to wait.

I think it was the third hat, a simple beige affair with an artfully shredded brim. It touched her crown, and I saw the sun rise in her face.

Long after she abandoned it in favour of pre-adolescent hatlessness - she refuses to wear a sunhat to this day - I kept it safe and treasured the memory of that brightening smile.