Now that it's over

On the last night of the summer, we slept under laden apple trees with fairy-lights strung between them.

A friend's brother from another Island threw a party to raise money for fixing his 150-year old house.

My friend Anna and I rode borrowed bikes to the end of the street and swam in the channel as the sun set.

I admired the sparse beauty and good taste of Anna's geo-dome home.


We ate our fill of wood-fired pizza and yummy brews, caught up with friends and met new, awesome strangers and danced to our hearts content.

Ian's parties seem to always be legendary, whether they involve his revamped school bus, house parties, or IDing people at the beer tent in Doe Bay. They guy is not just the life of the party, he is the party-good times seem to follow him and his endless aura energy field, or whatever the heck it might be (though it's definitely some kind of phenomenon)(reminds me of Heather, that way). All the three brothers are hella cool and have impeccable taste in women to boot. One of them built the Tesla Coil mentioned in this post and another plays the accordion. What's not to like?

It was nice to get some time with my best girls. All summer long we've only seen each other in passing, lamenting over how we miss each other.

The draw of the evening was "three guys-four bands", the variety of endeavours of the members of Hillstomp, another Island favorite. Whenever this Portland band shows up at our local bar it's pandemonium. Their tour schedule often reads something like "Los Angeles CA, San Francisco CA, Portland OR, Seattle WA, Some Island WA..." It's probably the Zeppelin-treatment we give 'em here. Screaming girls and all.

It was the perfect summer night. I slept under that apple tree in the grass and when I woke up it was still dark and a few people were gathered around the fire listening to a friend singing "Your Rocky Spine."

In the morning we hitched a ride town with our kind host, who was as enthusiastic as ever (in spite the complete lack of sleep), in his decked out double-decker school bus, and after breakfast headed out to the lakes.

We walked around the lake in silence, just happy to be together.

I wore my awesome Lost Boys & Lovers vintage bathing suit and lolled in the water to my heart's content, while my honey caught up on his sleep. The cotton skirt bears the decidedly un-tropical birds and pine trees and little cabins-motif, gifted to me by Missa on a wintry California morning, but it's been a summer staple in all its lightness and rainbow colors.

The air was calm and warm, full of swooping dragonflies, like the last hot sigh of the summer. Sitting on a cliff looking down into the clear water, I felt like a kid, with nothing but time, the afternoon stretching on forever.

And then, as the air started to cool night air began to settle in, we headed for the ferry and rode home in the dusk and just like that, summer was over. The next morning I woke to a chill mist on the water and the familiar scent of autumn, the smell of wood smoke and rotting leaves and apples.

I can't say that I'm sorry to see this summer go. It has been a strange and lovely time, with visits and parties and animal friends, but I'm ready for a new season, a change. The shorter days and longer nights seem so much more filled with promise of time than the long summer evenings. I'm excited to hunker down, pick up all my neglected crafts, ship out packages laying in wait, revise what I've managed to write over summer, finish filling my pantry with canned goods, visit with friends, and finally post here a little more often and about things beyond my own, often mundane existence.

I'm ready for fall, how about you?

Indian Summer Nights

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know it's been a very challenging year for us in many ways. There has been illness, financial strain, death, emotional stress and unexpected shifts. There have been countless smaller distresses;things braking, negative energy, people behaving irrationally, Mercury in retrograde.

I know that we have not been alone in all this.

In fact, it seems to me as thought the whole world, from our community and circle of friends to the wider, global community, even the planet itself, is going through a hard, strange time.

This is not to say that things are somehow terrible. They are, in fact, getting better everyday at least in our small world. Not because the worries and accidents and illnesses are diminishing, but because our perceptions of them are shifting. We're learning to bend so as we don't brake.

Last month, when these things reaching another miserable pinnacle, I decided to make sure not to waste what little precious energy we had, not to do anything we weren't sure we could do. We said no to things. No to parties and family and friends and opportunities and in my case, the internet.

Don't get me wrong, I love the connections this medium affords me and find it essential in keeping in touch with far-flung friends and family, but lately there has been hard to keep up with it. Maybe that's because there has been a need in my own life for some quieting, a slower pace, something the internet isn't conducive to.

I've simply felt too bogged down to be creative, to drawn in to share my thoughts with the wider world, too tired to communicate. The chaos in my life has extended onto this blog, making me wonder what I want it to be, how serious or frivolous it's expected to be, how much I want to invest into the quality of its content, images and words.

But as I adjust to the changed expectations, to new ideas of what I want to devote my energies to, so I guess will this little endeavor. So I will not promise more posts, or more serious content, or anything really. But I promise to be here and want all of you to know that I've been really grateful to know that all of you are here too.

Just say NO...to pipelines

First, thank you all so much for your heartfelt condolences on the passing of C.'s grandpa Gil. There's much I want to share with on the musings we've had on life and death in the process of his family saying goodbye to him, but that's going to have be another post, because right now, in the land of the living, there's something I need you to do. If you haven't already.

Sign this petition. Right now.

Why? Because, for one thing, building this pipeline is likely to push us further towards a climate change tipping point. A point that is where our climate is so irrevocably altered that lowering our emissions is not going to reverse the process.

Having followed the Tar Sands Saga - a sordid tale of environmental destruction, unsustainable environmental practises and rogue capitalism- from the get-go (thanks Mother Jones!), I was grateful to be alerted to this crucial decision the president and, by proxy, this country has to make.

This post by Mary of Terralectualism, (or Our Lady Of The Green Heart as I like to call her ;) is an excellent introduction to this hair-raising subject and offers empowerment and inspiration, like only her posts can.

Tomorrow is the last day of the protests in Washington, so add your voice of dissent by signing the petition, spreading the word, or simply sending good vibes to those willing to risk arrest to stop this atrocity from happening.

And most importantly: conserve some energy. That's what this all boils down to.

With love and outrage,

Milla