silver harbour - pt 2

SILVER HARBOUR – pt 2 (for pt 1 - see february 26th, 2007 post)

NB - the following post discusses a place we moved to a few years back.

noticeably absent from the landscape? starbucks, blenz, and the rest of the frou-frou coffee shops on every city block. city blocks. concrete phallic symbols – aka skyscrapers. construction cranes dotting the horizon. and … oh, the horizon! one which you could see for miles and miles. open to the possibilities that one could make for oneself. a lonely, empty horizon, beckoning new life. silence abounded. everywhere. it seemed i’d rode into a cell of still life. nothing. remote. noticeably absent from the landscape? retail enterprises within walking distance. and all the beautiful, shiny, happy people. you know? the ones that like containment … of life. the ones that tell us to stuff our raw, delicate emotions into rubbermaid containers, where we can no longer see or feel them. well – i could see no shiny happy people in the vicinity. wysiwyg. i had entered wysiwyg land.

i failed to notice how alone, insignificant and powerless life still left me feeling, as i marvelled at the wonders of wysiwyg - remote rural life. did i embrace this life change as fully as i believed? perhaps … perhaps … i only embraced it as an escape from the status quo. the one i believed i left behind in vancouver. however … one must often learn the hard way – status quo = oneself. status quo cannot fall away from oneself through a mere change of scenery. status quo can only fall away with an intense bout of molting. as in … a giant snake molting its skin. life still felt like something happening to me … as opposed to ME, happening to IT.

i marvelled. at the silent simplicity of each day, as its petals unfurled. i marvelled. at the silent, steady and constant resolve of the people who dotted the landscape. i marvelled. at the gentle wisdom of the does and the stags, the elk and the coyotes … who shared their quarters with us humans, in this place. i wondered …. what words lay on the mouth of lake winnipeg, whom I could hear, sighing ceasely, from the tiny cabin we would call home for the next year?

hummingbirds fluttered ceasely, like the beating of my unsettled heart, right outside my lving room window. the matrix of nature – in its purest form – weaving itself masterfully, before my wonderous, weary and sad eyes. the icey breath of old man winter brought desolation, utter paralysis - a chilling silence, as the sighs of my friend, the lake, grew silent. silence – a flawless reflector. of oneself. it strips a soul. leaving it naked, defenseless against the elements. and so – i stood. naked. shivering in the wind. shuddering at my petty insignificance. for all the world to see.

i wonder …. what did i see there, in my SELF?