Time to get winter wood

Seasonal magic

Kingfisher, Beaumont Marine Park, photo by Geoffrey Simmins

This time of summer, as we slice toward the ever longer nights of autumn, is when a prudent Pender Islander lays in firewood. Mine was delivered last week. The amount of sparkly delight I derive from this is ridiculous. I know it. Yet I imagine myself in a line of wood-gathering humans stretching back to cave days. It’s an image that makes me laugh, but between climate collapse and wars, there’s a real sense of urgency and danger in the world right now.

It creeps me out it’s so cold at the beginning of August. It was 12 degrees C last night. That’s 53 F. To contextualize, that’s so chilly my orchids should go inside at night, never mind holding down the table outside my front door. Any other summer I’d be wearing a thin summer dress, not jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a thick velour sweater. One morning I caved and turned my heat pump on; the house was so cold I was miserable. I thought of lighting a fire in the wood stove, but the island is dry, my neighbours would smell smoke and worry that the forest behind me was burning. The fire hazard is set to Extreme and islanders get jumpy.

This winter, when the power goes off, the firewood I’ve just had delivered will keep me warm. It’s one variable I can control. My charming little Vermont Castings stove can heat the whole house. Also, even when there’s power, in the evenings I like to light a fire. In the dark days of winter, it lifts my spirits.

Stories, flames, safety; they’re all bound up together. I like to think this is why humans learn to talk, so we could tell stories around the fire at night, as in, “Then I came around the corner and you’ll never guess what I saw. . ..”

I’m happy I’ve got my wood in. My friends and I will watch flames in the woodstove, drink tea or wine, and tell stories. It’s a magic time of day. We’ll take strength from one another and laugh.

But it’s only August. There’s still some summer left. Last week on a hike, I stopped for a moment to chat with an acquaintance. We exclaimed about how unseasonally cold it was–look at us, one dressed in fleece and the other wearing a jacket–and the other woman said to me, “I tell myself to be grateful that this year there’s no smoke.” She was right. Hearing her express gratitude so seriously, though, made me aware I’m not the only person feeling I’m navigating a newly perilous world.  Many of us are scared. We express thankfulness as if it will fend off what we fear.

Image credit: John Darkow, The Week

Forest fires used to rage elsewhere, somewhere far to the north or burning up southern California; the geographic remove seemed so immense the emotional impact was blunted. It’s only in the last few years that Pender Island has, summer after summer, had times when we’ve been blanketed with smoke from forest fires. The closest one to us now is the Sooke potholes fire, some 47 km away and on a different island. We smell the reek when the wind’s from a certain direction.

It’s hard sometimes to feel sparkly. I miss my husband who died four and a half years ago and my dog, who died three months and forever ago. When I’m aware that sadness is starting to sneak up on me, I try to open myself to where I am, really look at the bushes, the trees, the trail. There’s a connection there between all of us, the huge arbutus tree with its double trunks, the big-leaf maple tree that, in certain lights, fills the clearing it grows in with green light, the cedars, the Douglas firs, the salal and sword ferns, the dry moss, me walking along, seeing them, taking pleasure in life, all of it, all of us in the forest.  

Chicory means it’s later in the year

After my conversation with the woman who was grateful there was no smoke, I realized I had to turn around on the trail to make my hair appointment. On the way back, I saw a feather. It was so close to the trail I just had to lean over to pick it up. How had I not seen it going the other way? Barred owl, I thought, six inches long. In the 16 years, I’ve lived here. I’ve never encountered an owl feather before. I took it with me as a sweet hello from the universe.

Then I went off to get my hair smartened up. My hairdresser talked about, “. . . this icky, crazy world, I mean, what can any of us do?”

Briefly, I thought of the uber-wealthy building below-ground bunkers to survive supercanes, a term meteorologists are using to describe a wind in excess of 500 mph, so beyond a hurricane, no one can imagine it. But it’s a phenomenon that’s coming. However, I didn’t think mentioning a supercane would be helpful, so I told my hairdresser about meeting another acquaintance on the trail the week before. The woman stopped and asked, “Where’s your buddy?” She always used to give Kira a pat.

I blinked, teared up and told her Kira had died. We talked about my good dog for a moment. Then the woman seemed to realize she was standing there with a garbage bag in her hand, one of those white kitchen-size things. She brandished the bag and told me every few weeks she picked a different trail and cleaned up. “This is from the swimming hole at Magic Lake to the Disc golf park, mainly from along the road.” The bag was half-full. I gave this person a little bow and thanked her on behalf of the island.

My hairdresser liked the story. “If we can all do a bit, it makes for such a good community energy,” she said.

Otter at Thieves’ Bay, Photo by Geoffrey Simmins

In turn, she told me the story of Karl, a very community-minded farmer on the island, who this summer, let a local music festival use his land to stage their show. The area had camping available, an Imagination Market, craft and food vendors and places for kids to play. “It was such a beautiful setting in the trees,” my hairdresser said. The festival was held adjacent to the Pender Island Community Hall, where Karl donated the land for the Hall some 25 years ago.

As I talked with my hairdresser, I saw the two of us reaching toward gratitude and celebrating small, meaningful things to push back fear, or certainly I felt I was. We did our best to share a sense of hope.

We can’t fix our world. We’re worried sick about it. However, we can love it, celebrate it and perform small good actions that release care into our immediate environment, sending these winging up like sacred birds.

At this moment, I have lots of wood stored to keep me warm this winter, I feel connected to the green life around me, and my island gave me an owl feather. Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.” It’s our choice.

What have you been given today? There are no wrong answers!