Notes from Everland

Ky is in Vancouver today on the homeward leg of his trip from NYC after a successful visit with us. He bought with him as a gift 3 boxes of fair trade organic coffee from Variety Coffee Roasters in New York; 2  boxes from Ethiopia [best growing conditions and quality he says] and one from El Salvador. While here for the last 5 days he was up before anyone else [except yours truly "Sleepless Joe" thanks to my steroid meds] busily preparing a big pot of coffee for everyone. I am still drinking caffeine free Rooibos [recommended by my sister Marilyn] due to restrictions on my current care med. I am still hoping the new pill  dexamethasone will eventually counteract the lymphoma though I have been told it will not heal me. It is a palliative care measure to help reduce the swelling in my neck and face. However I have noticed the last 2 days the swelling seems to have increased again. I can feel its presence in my mouth on the upper right of my throat, like a large rope re...

Long ago and far away but just the other day, I was hiking up Mount Tzouhalem on southern Vancouver Island with my bamboo flute in hand. After several months struggling to find a single note, the flute had begun to respond to my breaths. The sound of it, echoing among the trees and hills was so natural and powerful than rather than sit in the confines of my little wooden cabin, I took it up to the mountaintop nearly every summer day. The flute, a Chinese folk instrument closely related to the Japanese shakuhachi, was a gift from a poet friend. Determined to learn it and to reproduce the haunting sounds that had first captured my attention, I battled with my tendency to give  up on it for days, weeks and months on end until at last it began to respond to my touch, thrilling me with the sound that emerged from it. I had been living in my cabin for about a year now, following the Zen tradition of sitting meditation coupled with chopping wood and hauling water and also working on m...

Bettianne’s party was a thing of wonder…and it took place at Priscilla’s fantastical little Haggis Farm…a place out of a children’s fairy tale if there ever was one. The house itself is set back from the drive behind the bakery so you don’t see it when you drive in. It is another of those single wall California type structures…but tiny and in several connecting buildings. Rick helped me up the steps and we made our way through 3 different levels into the kitchen and on to the tiny flagstone patio where the party was underway. The wood frame of the house is visible on all levels and adds a touch of rustic charm to the structure because you see and sense natural wood all around  you. The kitchen table was set up with about 6 fancy cheeses none of them yet cut…but meant for the party goers. I was offered a chair facing away from the reclining sun facing Bettianne and her daughter Christianne (who looks like an aging flower child to me with her toe rings and long graying hair a...

It is another idyllic day on Saturna Island. I have just come inside after a relaxing session seated out on the front deck overlooking Lyall Harbor. Chaya prepared a delicious tomato and black bean soup for lunch and so I was well nourished beforehand. Chaya spent most of the day preparing 2 lasagnas for Bettianne's 85th birthday party tomorrow. She turned 85 yesterday and looked after Dylan and his friend Charlotte all day.  They all went out to East Point with her and her grandson Stanley. The party will be held a Priscilla's Haggis Farm, just a piece down the road from us. Gord the fiddler who played at my birthday will be there and our friends Dick and Annie Wolenta will also be there. They have just returned from Hawaii where they visited their families and friends. Dick [who is in his 80s but going strong] reminds me strongly of a young hippie that I met on the train to Winnipeg on my way to attend my father's funeral in 1973. I noticed them get on the train aro...

Yesterday was a rest day for me after the busy activities earlier in the week. I found that the night before last and the one before that my dream state had returned. But last night before sleep I got up around 4 times and paced as my brain was cartwheeling. Yesterday for my daughter Chaya was a whirlwind of activity as she cleaned house in preparation for Dylan's return from time spent with his dad in Vancouver. She can do several things at once, multitasking without losing focus. Earlier in the day she had vacuumed all the rooms in the house and scoured the bathroom including shower, sink and tub. This week her partner Rick had brought home a load of plums from the trees in his yard, so Chaya decided to make pectin free plum jam. She was bent over the steaming pot when I first saw what she was up to...inhaling the fragrance. She turned to me with a frown and said, I made a mistake following the recipe. I should have put the sugar in after the fruit had boiled . But that sta...

It is 3:24 a.m. and this mid-night I am connecting to J-Pod. These magnificent orcas are struggling to survive and my daughter Chaya sent me a video via her iPhone of this pack of wild undersea horses pounding through the pass of the Georgia Strait. I have been hoping to catch a glimpse of them but so far have not been in the right place at the right time, but it is clear to me tonight I have been getting close. And I have been getting reminders, clues, pushes from my dear ones that I am on the right track, like this little room I have been granted overlooking Lyall Harbour on Saturna...with its stain glass mural of the mother Orca and her calf. My youngest sister Dianne who lives in Calgary reminded me too that she hoped I would listen for the singing of the whales. Dianne's message came to life again tonight in the wee hours when I remembered that I used to work for Greenpeace in Vancouver and our mission was to bring a Save the Whales program into the public schools. I w...