Last fall I handed the kids a bag of daffodils and said, “surprise me”. Now the hearty buttery blooms are coming up and I am delighted by the children’s choices. Who planted these ones by the chopping block? Who chose to dig them in so far down the driveway? I never thought they’d grow in this shade. Yes, there’s a line of them on top of the chicken coop!
I am alone at the Bowen house. The kids are with their other parents and my Fellow is quarantining himself in Vancouver and taking on extra work shifts at the firehall.
Our Bowen home is in arrested development. We are prepping it for BnB rentals so there are spots of luxuries I wouldn’t afford myself (new duvet cover! matching dishes!) and heaps of work yet to do (doors being sanded down in the living room, tools on the sideboard with paint cans and door knobs and caulking guns) There’s no rush to prepare the suite now. Besides, I’m too sore to do any of it, having scrubbed our filthy newly acquired Vancouver house until my arms have gone numb and my hands have swelled up so badly my knuckles have disappeared.
I plop the bunnies back in their country hutch and go down to feed the chickens some scraps and the leggy remains of the kale in my garden. The hens are fat and happy, having been well cared for by Forbes, our dear man on the land as they say. It’s hard to unlock and lock the latches of the roosting boxes with my puffy protesting paws. I boot the fluffy bum of the barred rock off her roost and find a half dozen beautiful warm blue white and brown eggs. Little Red squawks and leaves her post next to me, there’s a dozen more! And another five under one of the shiny black orpingtons. I have invited all our neighbours to raid the coop and still we are over run with bounty. Normally these eggs would go to our BnB guests or sold at the firehall. Bit of a funny predicament this.
I read a new play and dash off some letters to beloveds then head out for a walk. Could it be that in this time of the plague I am actually going to get healthy? I write to my Noom coach, “Seems awfully trivial to be counting calories right now, but I guess it’s something specific and tangible to accomplish during a helpless time like this.”
Bowen is rather desolate; everyone is isolating appropriately. I see Neil and Izzy have moved a pingpong table outdoors and their handsome young son is setting up to serve. A wooly couple walk past me and we both hug the curb of the road and wish each other good health. A blue heeler gives me one steely little bark down past the green cottage with the crows.
I haven’t been down this road since the fall and I notice how the winter winds have ravaged tree limbs and fences. Sweet determined buds are starting to appear.
I walk North towards the unfriendly wealthier end of the island: Hood Point. (Hitch-hiking locals are hooped along here; jags and beemers whiz by even in the most inclement weather). Because all things deciduous are still relatively without foliage I can see some of the impressive architecture of the lavish homes along the water. They are usually obscured by the green and rather secluded.
The bareness of this season has exposed the architecture of my life. It is lavish. I don’t just mean the uncomfortable awareness and relief of living in Canada and being married to someone who still has a job…but my life is lavish with love: my family, my friends, my community. When I’m bustling around I forget this. I get lost in the foliage of the forest I create. I whiz past life in my own jiggity jag. How stupid I am and this society, that I get so busy I forget to be grateful? Of course, realistically, I can’t keep paying this double mortgage without rentals and with all my work being cancelled until May 2021…blah blah blah…but for today…the only problem I really and truly have is an excess of eggs.
I come to the stairs down to Cate’s beach and wander along the stones. I have the entire shoreline to myself, give or take a gull and crow. I straddle and lie against a weathered dry warm log while wearing my husband’s sweater. It’s almost like he’s hugging me this way. I listen to the ocean’s consistency. The island is surrounded by its heart beat. I am grateful. I am small.
