Making It Up As I Go Along #693

The blog is back after my longest layoff.  Been too busy to get in a writing frame of mind.  Even now my mind isn’t really into it simply because I’m still not back to the normal routine.  Mom and dad have been in Ottawa for about a month now… and six of the last eight weeks.  It’s starting to setting down but there were weeks of running around shopping for their condo.  So four days of work would be followed by four days of shopping… before returning to work once again.  But they’re pretty well straightened out now.  Appliances, furniture, household goods, a car.  Three or four IKEA trips… four or five Home Depot trips… the hell that is Walmart.  Throw in some Christmas shopping and it’s been a busy time.

Looks like it’ll be a white Christmas.  Been cold and snowy this December.

The woods around me took another hit a few weeks ago.  The stuff directly in front of me remains intact.  But about half, or maybe even two thirds of the woods beyond the farthest pond has been removed.  And the woods that’s around the corner from me is also gone.  I can now go to my driveway and look at the playground that was once shrouded by forest.

Soon, that area will be built up with houses and a road.  But right now it’s a scar.  I’ll miss the coziness that I felt from having it there.  I’d stand in my backyard, with he BBQ going, and look beyond my fence at the green of the summer trees where birds would dart in and out of safety.  Next summer it’ll be a construction zone.  The summer after that, I’ll be looking at townhouses over there.

I still like the neighbourhood.  I’m sitting now, writing and looking out my front window at the forest across the street.  And I realize that where I live was also once a forested piece of land.  But I hate seeing that scar where once a forest stood.

Six days from now, the hope is that it’ll be family Christmas time.  Edena and crew due in at that time.  Of course, there’s currently a forecast of 15-20 cm of snow the day they arrive.  So here’s hoping flights make it ok.  It also likely means I’ll have another extended blog break after this post.  The crew are due to leave New Years Day.  I likely won’t write again until a few days past that.

The First Snow Walk
It comes each year.
Between fall hikes
And Winter snowshoed treks
A few weeks,
Of Snow Walks.

The first workout.
Working rusty muscles.
Unstable and sliding.
As a walk in a child’s ball pit.
Tire spinning feet
Burning muscles and lungs.

Soon the muscles tighten.
Regain the memories of past years.
And the lungs will catch up too.
But on this first,
It’s as a mountain expedition.
Training for Everest on a twenty foot slope
As tufts of grass peek out
From the fresh white snow.