I am sunburned and browning, and just returned from the interior where the mountains are lush yet the hills just east are brown and desert-like. This very morning I talked with my husband’s grandmother, who just turned 102. She, and the quick changing of seasons, reminds me that life is eternal but humans are maybe not–but that we still have to be appreciative of this fact and hold on to what matters.
Our Mother’s Day get-together consisted of various things: a vegan pasta dinner, a morning at a farmer’s market on Saturday where I reveled in the fresh produce and friendly people and dogs, watching “A Plastic Ocean” last night, soaking in the sun, and minders of growing things in our yards. Our destination: Kamloops, which hit record high temps this weekend. We returned from the mountains today to our own home–so glad to be back in one way but missing the wildness of the interior in another. We learned when there that the Kootenay’s, around Grand Fork, was experiencing dangerous flooding. These reminders of climate change are everyday.
Tonight I sat on the balcony with a glass of my favorite Rioja (a rare treat) talking once again to my own mother in Indiana. I smelled and felt and watered and tended to my own plants while in conversation: jasmine, kale, chives, cherry tree, tomato, thyme, mint, purple geraniums, and lilies. My hands smell of garlic and tomatoes.
I moved the cilantro inside as it’s already 30C today and the plant was yellow when I bought it. I dreamt of the trails to tackle this summer, and I sat on the back deck eyeing the invasive blackberries already tempting to take over our yard, even though we got them cleaned out last summer.
This is summer, my friends, a beautiful time of year–a time to get back to who I am–though it has come early this year, after sort of a non-spring.
My lovely summer has begun, too, back at my river cabin where sun and the river heal a siege of too much busyness this winter. The beavers have been busy too! I blogged about it on my web site