Maybe I'll Say Yes

Late-Night Black: My late-night thoughts are black and delicious. I want to let sexuality and creativity roll up to the surface, spill over. I think of getting a tattoo of a raven in flight, across my chest, across my heart and ribs and cleavage. I think of taking a tab . . .

Certain posts, like this one, I'm not going to show everyone. It's like the stars on the girls' nipples at nerve.com -- you need premium to get rid of the stars. All you have to do to get premium at Sea Changes is ask. Maybe I'll say yes.

Hazelnuts and Blackberry Wine

Tore it up on the trails again today. I went with Serina and Serena. Took a few hills I haven't done yet this season, stuff I've had to walk down other times. And I did a little drop, maybe my first! First real one. My head way down, my back up in the air. A real drop. It felt crazy. I rode a few skinnies, too. Good day. More sunshine, still tanktop weather, and just the girls. We did Two and A Juice to Buggered Pig again, then took Spanker to Tied Knot, a new one we had to walk a lot of, and it spat us out at the gate even though I thought we'd get to go down Mama Bear too on the way out.

Earlier today I was out harvesting hazelnuts, and Roxy came and joined me. It was nice to hang out with her, get to know her a bit better. She picked two weeks' worth of blackberries, she told me, and she's making blackberry wine. She told me Jimmy wants to have Thanksgiving out at their cabin at the Alders. It'll be so perfect. There's a big communal firepit out on the beach, and knowing Jimmy he'll do up oysters and mussels and all that. He's great like that. So probably it'll be Cait and I out in Clayoquot kayaking a few days before Thanksgiving, and then I'll make the drive back to be out here the day of. I love my community. I'm so lucky.

Seeds On the Wind

Thank you, Spirit, for a warm place to stay here. Thank you for my awesome friends. Thank you for this coastal life that revolves around friends and outdoors and health and good times. I'm very lucky to have stumbled into this. Thank you for a chance at the perfect job in Tofino. Thank you for Carrie, a good friend who will be in Tofino all winter. Thank you for Serina, and our wine-on-the-couch sessions. Thank you for the garden in the backyard. Thank you for Lennie, who I've known for so long now, and Jimmy and Jordan and all the solid guys. Thank you for Sarah and Carolyn and Denise and Serena Rotter and for Bev in Vancouver and Michelle in Revy. Thank you for Mum and Fred and Tess and Eleanore and Margaret and Tim and Gran. And Simon and Becca. And Dad and Liza. Thank you for the line of work I fell into this summer, and for new direction that will give me solidity.

I've got this dandelion, and I'm sending the seeds out on the wind.

I want to live in Tofino, and work for the Raincoast Education Society. I want to be there, right in the fog and firs and rain and surf. I want to surf, and take long walks on winter beaches, and wear toques and gumboots, and ride my single-speed around, and my longboard. I want to hang out in the coffeeshops and bakeries, and go to all the good shows that come through, and be a local for the next Grey Whale Festival. I want to get a sea kayak, and go kayaking all the time in Clayoquot.

I want to put down roots. I want to live in one place, the transient moving over and done with. I really want to grow a garden. Plant garlic this October, and be there to harvest it in August. Plant herbs. Follow the Cortes Island growing guide. I want to have my own cat.

I really want to live in my own little cabin in the woods, near the ocean. No roommates. Just me, and my garden, and the wild. Somewhere for my soul to stretch out. Quiet, and close to Tofino. Easy biking distance. I would write and do artwork and work on this blog. Cook good food and bake bread. This is what I want. To live a solid, down-to-earth life in Tofino. Mixed with the adventure of the ocean.

So I'm sending it out on the wind.

Food for the Off-Season

I love the Moosewood cookbooks. Mollie Katzen is rad. She writes them by hand, and Ten Speed Press lets her illustrate them herself. When I was in Grande Prairie this summer, one of the park interpreters, Sarah, was working her way through the Moosewood Cookbook, cooking every recipe. She would eat one portion, freeze the rest, and have lots of food in the freezer to get her through when she didn't feel like cooking. 'When I get home for the winter,' I thought, 'I'm doing that.' So here I am, cooking the first recipe: Cream of Asparagus Soup.

Last Mountain Bike Ride of the Summer

I just got back from riding the Cumberland trails. I have a whole gang of girlfriends who ride with me, but this time I headed out alone. The leaves are changing but it's still hot and sunny out, and it's a bluebird day. The last remnants of salal and huckleberries are still on the bushes, but the rosehips are coming out. In half an hour, it'll be Autumn.

Vancouver Island's renowned for its mountain biking, and Cumberland's a key area. I got my first full-suspension bike this summer, and I've been loving the difference. Today I went straight up the gravel road to Two and A Juice, connected that with Buggered Pig, and came down Bronco's Perseverance. A nice familiar little loop. Fun on my own, just rode it non-stop as much as I could. I think I'll invite those girls for dinner, though.

Autumn Equinox

This summer I underwent a sea change. I had plenty of time at Two Lakes to stop and look at mist over the fields, listen to rain, and follow ravens. I got down to soul-level.

Today is the Autumn Equinox, and I'm all about keeping the soul-level close at hand. Rosehips, blackberries, fresh-baked bread, soup from scratch, tall wet grass, spiderwebs outlined in dew, leaves showing through the fog, blue smoke . . . Keep me grounded, Autumn; keep me with you.