Making It Up As I Go Along #219

MONDAY…
--- Fairly normal day at work. Just enough work to keep going but not feel swamped.

TUESDAY…
--- A year and a half away from my lease on the car running out and I’m starting to think about the Mini again. Nice little car.
--- Lunch is excruciating. It’s the going away luncheon for Pam and bad service means the whole thing goes for two and a half hours! So I go home afterwards and will go back to start my day in the office at 5:00 instead of 3:00.
--- Work is alright. I’m alone in CNI after 7:30 and have computer problems for about forty-five minutes at the tail end of it all… but it’s over all, not too bad.

WEDNESDAY…
--- Quiet morning.
--- Work is fine with a small team (Dave, Grace, Louis and me). Greek for supper tonight and that’s about it.
--- Edmonton beat San Jose and move on to the semi-finals! I don’t see the game due to work, but it’s good to have them there.

THURSDAY…
--- Work is fine, supper with Melissa and Shannon at the mall is nice.

FRIDAY…
--- In at 2:00 for a meeting. I was going to go in earlier than that but was tired this morning and didn’t really wake up until close to 11:00.
--- Work is quiet. Many people took the evening off for the long weekend. Four in CNI and four more in AFIS… that’s it.

SATURDAY…
--- Cool and wet day. I planned on hanging out around the house but Karl calls and invites me to Gatineau Park (in Quebec). So we hike around there for little more than an hour.
--- Quiet evening around the house.


Pete’s Joe Batt’s
In 1980 it’s 1950.
This mossy rock where people perched.
For generations, lives here grow, come together, and end.
Barely the soil for potatoes. Existence maintained by the fruits of the sea.

The view out the window is the same.
Hills unchanged from childhood to old age.
Points and partially submerged rocks
Where waves break and foam since before my grandfather’s birth.

Doors unlocked, now as before.
Neighbours enter a house without hesitation.
And in the kitchen, they are greeted without surprise
Such visits are a way of life.

Stores are shops.
It is the shop where youngsters go for candy and drinks.
Go to the store and find tools, nets and parts of machinery,
All in musty warm darkness, waiting to be used again.

In shacks of wood hanging over the sea.
Fish and salt await.
These stages are little man-made peninsulas
Jutting out over where land and sea meet.

Below the floorboards, lops and gollops.
The sound of the tide filling and emptying the foundations
Old rock and wood rising from the sea.
Fishermen working above, crabs and sculplins feeding below.

Paved roads are the minority.
Gravel still guides old and dusty cars
Over winding dusty hills
And along rugged barren shores.

And before the cars
Dirt paths for walking and horses.
Communities connected for long walks
Or trips in a cart.

More often, you visit other bays and coves by way of boat.
The family all gathered at the stage.
Women helped down by men
The putting motor bobbing the family over the waves and to friends.

Sheets and shirts flutter in breezes.
The sea and gardens blown into them
A smell that will be there for days
Making you one with this land, even as you sleep.

Bread and lassy jam tart baking.
The smells from the kitchen wafting through the house
Smells that leak out through open windows
Giving a hint of lunch before you ever enter.

In this place, your house is but your room
One room of dozens like yours.
The community is your home.
Many houses together and lived in by all.

An afternoon of yarns at the stage.
A bit of supper at Joan’s
And off for a few hands of cards to end the night.
Cards and a lunch at Pete’s.

And then, when the tea and tart are gone
It’s a stroll along the road.
Making way by moonlight
Soon to be under sea-breezed sheets.