Adventures

crickets announce the end of summer. And our apple trees so loaded the branches bend with the weight. the purchase of firewood (something I've never had to do before). Cleaning the chimney. The return of my seasonal allergies, sneezing incessantly at the slightest provocation, puffy face, runny nose on waking. F and I are on adventures again, 22nd floor highrise across from science world, inside science world, the natural wood and sand playground outside science world, the 100+ year old train station, echoing and cool, just a block and a half away though its really in another world. Just meters from exclusive gated tiled apartment foyers with potted ferns and water features, other humans no less worthy, lay collapsed on each other, on their carts, filthy, while canada geese graze around them. F got the zoomies that night for lack of outside time, barefoot in nature, said pleadingly at bedtime mama I need to go outside! so we sat together on that high up balcony for a long time watching lightning over vancouver island, the lights of science world, of downtown, of the arenas, the boats. Watched the moon come up behind city hall, picked out the lights of the childrens hospital, we imagined the inpatient suites we know so well having a balcony like this. We watched a paddle boarder in the dark marina, moving erratically, maybe from boat to anchored boat, sometimes silhoutted against the colourful lights reflected in the water. By noon the next day we were exploring a mountain stream and felix was getting lessons in bushwhacking through mountain shrubs. The stream was breathtaking, flowing like a sheet of satin over immense flat boulders of granite the length of our house, dropping into perfect pools after an elegant little waterfall of a meter or so, huckleberries on the side, closed in and secret. Very asian fusion west coast, so perfect it could have been in a water feature in the downtown we had just left. And we had it to ourselves- the hordes of day hikers from the city parked bumper to bumper at the trailhead just stuck to the path, walked past the opening in the alder some pipeline worker had hacked down to the water. Of course I thought of john, of our hike here, us on jeans and backpacks, and my first time encountering city hikers in white socks and runners with a fanny pack and water bottle, leggings or running shorts and a sports bra, on the side of a mountain. I was stunned and appalled that someone would go into the mountains so underprepared. John had just chuckled having had plenty of experience with taking city folk into the mountains. I also thought of hamish and as we were ready to turn away from the first fall and pools we found, said what would H do right now? He'd shrewdly look around and pick a route and start scrambling, go further upstream and see what came next. So we did and it was even more stunning around every bend. There was a rock who seemed to want to come home with us to be part of our pathway, I asked it permission and felix put it to his ear and told me it had said yes. The air smelled like subalpine fir. Felix learned how to test river boulders for wobbliness before putting all your weight on them and submerged rocks for slipperiness. This is our creek now in that we can take it with us in our minds, I told him. It can live as a beautiful refreshing place inside you always.