Sunday, August 03, 2008

A gorgeous ruin or notes after returning from SH


Photo Lumsden, SK. July 29, 2008.

* * *

I've been home two days now. Long enough for the poison ivy I picked up while trudging through the leaf litter at St. Michael's to make itself manifest. Long enough to tire of my daughter's need to be held constantly.

The drive home from Lumsden did not go ask quickly as I had hoped. Partly it was the the fact that we lost an hour with the time difference, partly it was driving by the crime scene somewhere near Portage La Prairie (the bus was being hitched to an enormous tow truck as we motored past), partly it was the slow service and indifferent food at the all-you-can-eat sushi joint in Brandon.

(I know, I know: who in their right mind eats all-you-can-eat sushi in Brandon!?! But we were hungry and both Roewan and I have lived in big-ish cities too long to have any real common sense, vis-a-vis raw fish and small-ish towns.)

But I started the trip with a mittful of Tim Horton's tea from Regina and I had a Dilly Bar in Moosomin. And my girl ran at me with such violent and tender delight when I appeared in the door...so I can't complain much.

(Did I mention that I had to write my column when I got home? It took us 45 minutes to get Aa to sleep after our reunion and then I had to unpack and move the car, kindly loaned to me by the in-laws for the trip, before I could even START the column. Needless to say, I only got to bed at 3:20 am.. .)

While I haven't yet adopted my new post-bedtime schedule of 30 min-1 hour on our new recumbent bike and 1 hour of freewriting I WILL as of next week. I'm also planning to ruthlessly cut down on extraneous commitments...

But first, I needed a few days to itch my poison ivy and unpack my bags and despair ever so slightly at my own private gorgeous ruin (o, the carpets, the counters, the heaps of laundry...).

3 comments:

Brenda Schmidt said...

Welcome home!

Anonymous said...

I second that motion!

I hope the rest of Sage turned out well for you!

Ariel Gordon said...

Thanks, you two...it did. There was some chanting, some dancing, some singing...oh, and writing. Under a tree. In a grass wallow. And nearly every time I plunked myself down, the cool presentiment of a storm. And then the storm itself, blowing the goddamn out of the afternoon.