Unhappy Mother's Day

These days are hard. Not because I don’t have a mother, no. My mother, Brenda, lives on healthy and well, and I am very fortunate to be her daughter.

I grew up in her single-mother household and saw her work so damn hard for us ungrateful, demanding, and selfish three kids. I didn’t know then it wasn’t normal for parents to work in excess of 12 hours a day. For weeks, then months, then years on end. How she still attended our band recitals, sports competitions, and even had time to pursue her hobby and passion, gardening, is beyond me. She must have had some arrangement with the universe’s timekeepers, because otherwise I truly do not know how she did it all.

No, today isn’t hard because I don’t have a mother. It’s hard because it also serves as an anniversary of my brother’s car accident. An alcohol-fueled accident involving just his vehicle that was in all likelihood an attempt to take his life. It’s a powerful reminder of the role and relentless grip that addiction still has on our family. We had hoped it would have ended with our late father’s passing, but addiction and mental health is a wicked beast.

Today is hard because it marks another milestone. It’s almost a month until Father’s Day, and I no longer have a father.  I have not celebrated a Father’s Day since I was 12.  More than the absence of my father, it was hard seeing my mother unsupported by an immediate partner.  Perhaps seeing this lack of close companionship in her life forced me to lean on my other communities early on in my own life.

Sports, band, part-time jobs, church all become parts of a network that made me feel safe, valued, and challenged.  Of course I felt those things at home from my mother, but it still felt somehow incomplete without a pair of parents sharing the roles and responsibilities of raising three very different kids.  I no longer say it’s a deficit or an absence I feel everyday. Rather, it creeps up at inopportune and unsuspecting moments.

So long 33, hello 34!

Well, 33, you’ve taught me a lot. I stepped out of my comfort zone multiple times, and have been richly rewarded. I suffered defeat in the professional sphere that’s added to my uncertainty of remaining employed in the forest industry. More of that later. Or not – I’m still coming to grips with the possibility of a soft exit strategy from an industry, and ultimately an identity, that I’ve proudly worn for more than a decade.

My birthday has long marked a transition point. It’s the start of summer season, the shedding of winter’s cool and dark embrace, a return from foreign travels. From student to worker, from unemployed to frantically refilling my bank account, from office to field, as if the entire bush is open for business on May 1.

Summers have always meant work. Silviculture workers are not afforded the luxury of “summers off”, “holidays”, or “a week at the cabin”. Rather, my birthday marks the start of a condensed season of intense physical effort to collect data, wrangle contractors, and maybe even sneak in a lucrative fire deployment. I push my body and demand it relearns how to penetrate thick alder, swim through aspen and cottonwood, traverse over slash taller than me, and delicately dance with devil’s club.

And I lose. I fall. Over and over and over again. My body telling the familiar tale as bruises, cuts, and grazes cover my limbs.

This year feels different. That familiar longing has waned, my desire drained. Perhaps what was once a novel and desirable way to spend summer has now become mundane. Former excitement and anticipation have been replaced by familiarity and predictability.

Too scared to outright quit – for now – I have relished in my after-hours life: The soccer games that carry on til late. Book club gatherings that pass in what seems like minutes as we alternately howl and then cry over the events in the pages and each other’s lives. Intimate live music events that stir the soul. Intense off-mat conversations at the yoga studio. Raucous apres swim socials that shut down the restaurant.

Ultimately it’s community and rich relationships that have held me as I contemplate next steps. I don’t have an end destination in mind, but I am thrilled to share the journey with so many supporting friends, co-workers, and teammates.

2018 in review

Community.  Deeper than the physical towns of Dawson Creek or Chetwynd, 2018 fostered connections and cemented sense of place.  The workplace was my first community, and point of contact in Dawson Creek.  Taking a sabbatical abruptly tore me out of that supportive environment and I was relegated to isolating online studies.  As I’ve so often done in the past for social, mental, physical, and ultimately athletic support, I leaned on my sports teams and clubs. 

Too scared and injury receptive for game play, I continued to practice with my indoor soccer team, and enthusiastically rejoined them on the outdoor pitch for the summer.  It was another hard-fought fun season with most games carrying on to Boston Pizza for “pizza and pop” where we compared bruises and recounted stellar and botched plays.  The progressive party concluded as we walked each other home. 

The beginning of 2018 presented an unusual opportunity: free lifeguard training.  I attended “tryouts” and was one of 24 accepted from 49.  It wasn’t an exploration I’d seriously considered until it was right in front of me.  Confined to studies by day, it was satisfying to physically work towards something, with what quickly became a close-knit group, in the evenings and eventual weekends.  By the end of our National Lifeguard course in May, I was one of about a dozen to successfully complete the course.  But I still wasn’t an employed lifeguard.  A wet, and then dry interview still awaited where I continued to (out)compete with my cohort for a spot on deck at the local pool.  I have savoured the new working environment – the learning curve has been steep, but I feel well supported and cared for by my fellow guards and swim club teammates.   

My sabbatical was mostly successful.  I received good grades for all the courses I was registered for, but fell short the ultimate reason for the sabbatical, my goal: completing my Registered Professional Forester designation.  Invested since 2015, it’s a goal I feel a sick, perverse even, loyalty to complete, and it’s been fraught with roadblocks, ditches, and fiery dragons.  It’s felt like each step I take forwards, my professional association is waiting in the bushes to kneecap me.  This coupled with general work dissatisfaction and career disappointment has had me deeply questioning my long-term role and plans in the natural resource sector.  Perhaps it’s the notable, uncomfortable even, lack of community at my day job that’s adding to my uncertainty.  I can’t wait to leave at the end of the day and be in familiar embrace of one of my athletic communities.   

Scared? Do it anyways.

My first swimming medal is misleading.  And I’m thrilled to have received it.  Not because I trained hard and outswam my peers (full disclosure: I was dead last), but because I was scared to race and did it anyways.

I was nervous, terrified even, of competing in a sport I haven’t been doing that long, don’t think I’m that good at, and would be subject to the judging eyes of spectators, coaches, officials, and my teammates. 

Yes, I’ve competed in various individual and team sports over the years, but the newness, my lack of confidence and overflowing self-doubt plagued me as I packed my suit, snacks, and sandals for the day: my start resembles a controlled bellyflop, my turns are a comic work-in-progress, I am an older athlete, there were few to none registered in my division. 

But I dutifully drove to the pool in a torrential rainstorm that mirrored my roiling guts.  I asked my coaches and teammates dumb, obvious (to them) questions in an attempt to still my nerves.  Yet I marshalled for my event near tears with nerves, with my swim bestie, an athlete half my age, confidently adjusting her cap beside me. 

I settled down when I stepped on to the blocks.  I’d dove off these during warmup.  I have practiced starts dozens of times in my home pool.  The familiarity was comforting.  First whistle.  Second whistle.  At the horn, we were off in to the glacial-temperature water.  And I swam hard.  Like I meant it, like I wanted it, like no one was watching. 

I touched the wall and looked up at the clock – 15 seconds behind the fastest swimmer, but TWO WHOLE SECONDS off my previous personal best time.  

Showing up, racing, and finishing was alone a feat worthy of celebration, but a personal best time - that validated receiving a medal.  

First impressions from Churchill

Descending through the clouds, the area south of Churchill, Manitoba revealed a seemingly stark landscape of small lakes, patchy trees and low lying shrubs aglow in fall colours.  A bright midday sun illuminated willows yellowing, bearberry reds, larch taking on just a hint of blonde prior to loosing their needles as shallow grasses waved and weaved between it all.  A horizon uninterrupted by tall trees or taller buildings.

I applied to come to Churchill and more specifically the Churchill Northern Studies Centre after an unfulfilled summer of low to dismal job prospects in my northern resource town.  As mild depression and feelings of worthlessness, under appreciation and really-what-the-f-am-I-doing?!? were creeping in, I knew I needed to shake up my (lack of) routine and rediscover my direction while deeply reflecting on future plans.

There's something about isolated places that attracts unconventional people.  Living, playing and working alongside and with these goofy, wayward folks is something I have sought out around the world.  Aside from university residence halls, the shared intimacy of daily life cannot be harnessed anywhere else.  Few other places do we have the opportunity to live closely with people who are not our family.

Happily I can recall more than half a dozen occasions where I have willingly left the comfort and security of home, friends and family for immersion travel.  Satisfying experiences for paid and volunteer work that have taken me to truly great physical places while supporting that parallel journey of personal introspection and soul searching.

So, as I've outwardly oggled the recent northern lights and polar bear in my first week, I am also consciously monitoring inside for the redevelopment of creativity and passion.

Views from my bedroom towards Hudson's Bay

Returning from field work

Churchill River

Churchill's own beach to Hudson's Bay

Upcoming (more) northern visit

I think I have a thing for apex predators.

Living and working in northern British Columbia in prime black and grizzly bear habitat, I regularly see these beauties cruising the powerlines, cutblocks, roadsides looking for a feed.  In all the sightings and interactions on foot, none have given me any grief or cause to worry.

Two previous stints took me to volunteer at the Sharklab on beautiful Bimini in the Bahamas with a variety of shark species.

On Sunday, I will be arriving in Churchill, Manitoba to volunteer for six weeks at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.  Situated on the aurora oval and adjacent to Wapusk National Park which protects the inland denning area of the polar bear, I'm looking forward to the opportunities to view northern lights and migrating polar bears.

As at the Sharklab, it's the spectacle of these apex predators that lures in most visitors and volunteers. While I fall into that category, I have to remind myself that these places are SO much more than the critters they're known for.

Bimini has endemic snakes, migrating birds, massive turtles and tiny seahorses while Churchill is also a birding haven, botanist's wet dream as three biomes converge, an active archaeological dig and there's even seasonal beluga whales!  And then there's the people I met and have yet to meet.

Yeah, I had a great time longlining, observing and acoustically tracking juvenile lemon sharks, swimming with reef sharks and pen building at the Sharklab, but it is the relationships I developed and continue to nurture that were the greatest prize from my time spent in Bimini.  So again, I'm looking forward to a new place and new faces to share this great next adventure.   

Summer photos so far

Various mountain, river and work days