As the Summer Ends

I have been so extremely busy that I haven’t had time to really write at all lately. But I have been moved to explode my thoughts onto paper, or in this case, the computer. However, term start on campus leaves me little time to do much else than breathe when I have a chance. In the meantime, I’m incredibly grateful for slightly cooler weather and the smoky haze that is almost gone from Vancouver. With over 600 wildfires in our province over the summer, scientists are suggesting that this will be the new normal–more wildfires, drought, and heat in our coastal and inland summers. I wave it good bye now.

Some other exciting things are going on:

  • I am harvesting four pumpkins this year, and they are small, but I love that I got any at all–especially from balcony pots.
  • My novel Back to the Garden is going to the printer in the next week and will be available for purchase on October 16th. This is a revision to launch the Wild Mountain Series.
  • I got to make my first mulled wine of the season for a friend’s pretty huge combined birthday party last weekend, and boy did that taste good.
  • I have some super exciting partnerships to announce for both Moon Willow Press and Eco-fiction.com (separate partnerships). Coming soon!
  • Today, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the Trans Mountain Pipeline’s permit, due to a couple reasons, mainly lack of proper consultation with all First Nations along its proposed route and a strike against the National Energy Board due to their tanker traffic report being flawed. Eco-justice–which my most recent author Marissa Slaven is donating 100% of her royalties to right now–played a big part in overseeing this justice and I am so grateful to that organization for constantly working hard to keep Canadians safe. The ruling came as a total shock–but it’s a good surprise. I also recall a few years ago when Harper was the prime minister and we all thought for sure that the twin pipelines would get built up north–and those never did either. There’s no solid argument for these pipelines to be built. Fossil fuels are no longer anyone’s best resource, never were–in fact, people who continue to think so are ignoring the more practical economical and environmental benefits to diversifying Canadian economies to various industries, including those worth investing in (i.e. green/clean energies). I always say that a country’s best resources are its diverse peoples and initiatives to be smart about energy and tech; best resources are never natural resources (unless they stay in the ground, in the air, or at sea), which, when exhumed, pollute our waters, air, and soil–and our health. I don’t know why some premieres cannot understand this basic premise (Alberta’s for instance). Today Alberta pulled out of Canada’s climate plan because they say that pipeline expansion is key to energy transition that will help climate change. Huh? I mean, everyone’s got a narrative, but at least try having some common sense and quit pretending your audience is foolish enough to believe such things. We already have too many pipelines. Climate action means not expanding upon them but trying something else; oh, I dunno, solar and wind, just for starters. Simple as that.
  • Some time ago James Bradley wrote this article “An Ocean and an Instant,” published by the Sydney Review of Books. I love James’ fiction, but I really love his essays too, and this particular one is the best thing I’ve read all year. I’ve experienced similar things in my family, and similar observations of the world, so the article resonates with me 100%. In fact, before I read it I had been thinking of writing a blog post about how time since 2009 has been cruelly fast, exponentially quicker each day–and a lot of this has to do with my own father’s death, my mother’s growing forgetfulness, and the impossibility that the world has changed so much in the last nine years than it ever had before. I may someday write this blog post, but it will be with a clearer and less harried mind. Did I mention that term start is a super crazy time? I hardly have time for lunch or anything else, and by the time I get home and run errands my mind is so cluttered and tired that all I can do is sit and zone out until bedtime. I far outdo my Google Fit every day just from regular activity.

But anyway, this is my season. I’m doing a late “summer” bbq this weekend with some friends, and it will be a southern theme, and I am making red beans and rice, Kentucky Mules, cornbread, okra, etc.–and am lucky that Saturday will be sunny-ish and warm-ish. But this is my season. It no longer feels like we live in a desert with fires burning around us. Nights are decidedly chilly. Things are ready for harvest. It’s apple season. I smell the funniest things at night, like a strong scent of late chives in the back yard. And the light. It’s the season of golden light in the late afternoon and evening. It’s time for bonfires in our rock fire pit (we cannot have wood bonfires in the town). We’ve thrown our big wool quilt with canoe and oar and maple leaf and moose patterns over us at night. I’m loving it. I promise at some point I’ll do a real blog.

The featured image is by copyright by Jeremy Weber and is titled “Ronan Sunset”–Flickr Creative Commons.

Leave a Comment