A Vulnerable Species

The Yellow Rail is highly secretive, the Red-Headed Woodpecker nests in dead or dying trees, the Southern Flying squirrel is capable of gliding 50 yards between trees. These are all vulnerable species, all needing protection because they are vital elements of our biodiversity. Without them, we'll all be a little less resilient as an ecosystem.

The other night, I accepted an invitation to a house concert. I had never been to one before, and I was intrigued. The artist was Tanya Davis. I have long admired her work from afar and now, finally, I was up close. My favourite (which she played that night) is Art. She is most famous though for How to be Alone (see above).

The night of the house concert, we were ushered into my friend's cosy and beautiful cottage, festooned with fairy lights and we snuggled in to hear Tanya sing.

Tanya is a delicate singer and writer. She speaks and sings of her acceptance of being vulnerable in a world of heart break, and 9-5 jobs, that can (and does) harden many other hearts. With her sweet words and smile, she invites you to do the same, in whatever measure you can muster.

Her music made me take stock of a lot of things in that cosy cocoon, but most of all I came away with the thought, artists are essential to our life blood. Art innoculates us against fear and stress and cruelty. Artists, like Tanya, often produce their best work when they choose to put themselves into delicate, precarious states, right on a line between danger and safety. She volunteers to be a vulnerable species. She does this for art, but also to help us all stay as resilient as possible.

The song I loved loved loved that night is one I want sung at my funeral: Don't Bury Me.

Comments

I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Fists full of lettuce

It is a pot of a variety of lettuce plants. It was planted by my mom. She has been living with Stage 4 bile duct cancer for at least 1.5 years (that we know of, probably a lot longer). Standing and gardening are becoming harder as time goes on. She learned about gardening from her dad as a kid and kept on gardening every year of her adult life. Sometimes the gardens were tiny or rudimentary, but with the help of my dad , they have become major and, at times elaborate, growing projects over the years. Now it is a collection of raised beds and regular beds that hold a host of plants, vegetable and flowers. Something that was clear that first spring with Stage 4 cancer is that gardening would continue in a big way, cancer or no cancer. It was important to order the seeds and start them inside and get them planted outside, no matter what. Spending time together in the summer with cancer now consistently involves gardening and following instructions. Plant...

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still. We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue. Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision. They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped. Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

Growing Versions

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