Power Outages, a Wig and Some Snow

 

Hidden Beach, Hornby Island

I was bored that first February on the island. 

I made my first dating profile. 

Then the power went out for two days and I forgot about the profile.

That first February, when it snowed nine inches, 

the pump for my cistern broke and 

I had no water for a week. 

No way on or off the island. 

It was a long weekend, and the ferries broke down. 

OUT OF ORDER. 

That time I slipped down the entire flight of stairs from the loft. 

That time I bought a long brown wig and thought about changing my identity.

The first time I saw a river otter in my yard, I thought it was a pheasant. 

That time Joan ran from me after she accused me of trying to kill her. 

That time at the depot when Jason asked me if I smoked weed, gave me an empty Costco cashew container and 

directed me to the two contractor bags full of fresh bud in 

the back seat of his beat-up pickup. 

I gave the weed to friends on the Coast. 

Those times at night, crying myself to sleep in a king-size bed that wasn’t mine. 

Mornings with Flo. 

Her meowing when the coffee was ready. Asking me to come downstairs. 

“Mommy, coffee’s ready!” 

She gave me a reason to get out of bed. 

The cat with the toupee and Hitler moustache that would spy on me from the absent neighbour’s yard. 

The blind old man in his mobility scooter with his fat, smiling, yellow lab 

That yellow dog always made me smile. 

He reminded me of my childhood dog Gus. 

That time I asked my neighbour to come sit with me for a while. 

That first time, the power went out for fifteen hours. 

I was not prepared—no water, food or means of cooking. 

That first time I sat by the campfire in my backyard, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate- it started to snow. 

The time backing out of my driveway, hitting a tree and knocking the driver’s side mirror off my car - 

six months of a bread bag duct taped around the dangling remnants of mirror and wires. 

And the other time the power went out, I had to melt snow in a bucket by the fire, 

but the fire melted the bucket. 

That day you can tell winter is finally over.

So Long, Marianne

My bunkie on Hornby

I could hold your hands in the dark and show you how it felt. 

I listened to The Songs of Leonard Cohen 171,936 times in 796 days. 

I knew my cat would die while So Long, Marianne played. 

And she did – on day 796. 

1032 days later, I played it again, for the first time. 

I got as far as Come over to the window, my little darling. 

Transcendent. 

Nobody knows. Nobody knew. Nobody’ll know. 

My cat and I watched each other die. 

Now, so long, Marianne. It’s time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.

Flo and Leonard Cohen

Expectations vs Reality

 

Tribune Bay, Oct. 2019, Hornby Island

Expect to tell the time by the speed of the internet. 

Eat a lot of leftover frozen chilli. 

Exceed the number of days not washing your hair. 

Search out other humans to make sure you're not the last person on Earth.

Mumble. 

Swear a lot.

Piss in a bucket beside your bed. 

Complain, suck it up, do it again. 

Ask yourself questions like, 

“I believe in ghosts. Why don’t I believe in aliens?” 

Be friendly even though you’re in the worst mood of your entire life. 

Expect not to see or speak to anyone for days and then

try to remember how to have a conversation. 

Identify irrational fear. 

Motivate yourself by asking, 

“What are you going to do, just lay there and die?” 

Deal with incompetence. 

Allow insults to roll off your back.

The Satanic Majesty's Request

My one-room cabin on Hornby

He looked down at me every morning with a side-eye smirk.

Satan, with his bug-eyed hellhound always by his side. 

I reached out to him, my hand touched the pine ceiling, 

and he faded into the dark knots of the wood slats above me. 

I tried to sit up. 

My head smacked the low ceiling, and I collapsed down. 

Rolling onto my side, 

a mattress spring dug into my hip. 

A garbage bag tacked over an open window 

blew softly in and out. 

A sliver of light sliced through the forced darkness, 

throwing a spotlight on a spiral of floating dust. 

I watched the dust swirl 

while my breath aligned with the movement of the garbage bag. 

Inhale in the dark, exhale in the light - 

in for four, out for four.

My eyes dropped to a red plastic bucket under the window, 

a scream from downstairs shattered the air, 

and I shot out of bed.

The morning scream came daily and belonged to 

my deaf twenty-one-year-old cat Flo. 

It was my reminder to get out of bed and move on from 

my fixation with smirking demons 

casting judgment from above. 

Careful not to fling its contents, 

I grabbed the bucket and crouched along 

the wall to the stairs. 

The loft stairs were a hazard. 

They floated, didn’t have a railing and were too steep. 

Tilley and the stairs from hell 2019

Flo had watched me and her sister Tilley (now deceased)

fall from the loft and decided a downstairs bedroom was more her speed. 

On one of my first nights in my place, 

I took a late-night slip-and-slide tumble down the stairs. 

I crashed on a wicker chair, 

tipped it over onto a side table, 

knocked that over, 

and broke a ceramic lamp against the wood-burning stove. 

From that night on, 

the red plastic piss bucket 

took up permanent residency 

under the garbage bag window 

beside the mattress on the floor. 

Stair by stair, I sat my way down. 

I remembered the morning prior when 

I'd leaned too heavily on the bucket, 

spilling the contents. 

I watched 

my night's piss 

flow down 

the steps 

and 

seep into 

the grains of 

the unfinished pine stairs. 

It made me think of fish ladders at the Capilano River Hatchery. 

In three hundred and fifteen days, I'd tell my realtor that the piss stain

was Lemon Balm and Chamomile tea, 

a gift given upon Flo's death from a philosophy prof 

turned red seal electrician.

my bedroom - with evil pine knots in the ceiling

Electric Chocolate Lilies

my studio on Hornby

He was a philosophy prof at Berkeley during

the Vietnam War 

but left once the protests started. 

When I asked him why, his answer was, 

 “For the same reason you did.” 

He came to wire my studio for a kiln - 

the Berkeley professor turned red seal electrician. 

While he worked, we spoke. 

Breakfast until dinner -

he’d sit in his car at lunch. 

Academic freedom. 

The commodification 

of 

counterculture. 

fir and fungus

During these talks, I’d think of my university buddy 

Barry and his mocking tease, 

“You want to touch his brain,” 

I couldn’t say it wasn’t true. 

A precise man of slight stature with long grey hair,

down the middle of his back- 

and always in a ponytail. 

50 years moving between Denman and Hornby. 

Married twice. 

A bit of a loser for a son. 

zinnias

He’s kind, compassionate and emotionally intelligent. 

An “amateur expert” botanist. 

He spends days on end collecting native plants

from North Island mountains 

and from the side of Hwy 19A. 

His property is filled with his fifty-year collection - 

an herbal tea garden, his prize. 

I gave him bushels of my peppermint. 

It’s invasive. He didn’t grow it. 

He asked my Venus and laughed knowingly when I said 

Scorpio. 

A friend, who also wanted to touch his brain, 

told me he used to lead naturalist hikes around the island. 

On his last day of wiring, he asked me if I’d ever seen

chocolate lilies. 

I said, No

the castle house

He recited what I thought was a Wordsworth sonnet. 

When I heard the castle house, I realized he was giving me

directions from heart. 

When my cat died, he brought me a tin of Lemon Balm and Chamomile tea 

from his garden.

Norsk

My car, my yard, some snow. Hornby Island Winter 2021

Articulately rough around the edges and well dressed. 

A best pal and kindred spirit. 

He lived on the waterfront across from me - on four properties side-by-side. 

We’d sit on my deck and drink putrid bile beer, 

"But hey, at least it’s cold." 

A talker 

and a tall Norwegian 

who said inappropriate things. 

From Crescent Beach. 

He loved genealogy and knew more about my ancestral family than me. 

I’d often see him when I was out for long walks, and we’d continue on together. 

He’d point, "There’s a Norwegian!" 

We’d draft blueprints for utopia and tactics for coups, 

But it’d be unsustainable. 

Me and Dave and Roy standin’ around, shootin’ the shit,

We fought Viking battles together,

spiced rum

nodding in unison.

His brain held a lot of information. 

Kirby, his water dog, was always by his side. 

A retired public servant, horticulturist and genius who knew everyone. 

Married with two adult daughters and two granddaughters. 

He took his elderly father to Norway for one last visit. 

A lovely human and a dear friend who helped me keep it together. 

A fellow city escapee staying on the island during the pandemic. 

We compared island gossip, 

the outsiders, with insider knowledge. 

When he died, his daughter called me.

Expresso

Hornby Island Community Radio

He's socially awkward and handsome, and his front teeth are broken. 

Super smart, with a penchant for salmon burgers – 

But only the Costco ones.

A card-carrying Green, 

Because I can't vote anarchy. 

We awkwardly problem-solved together. 

As per my buddy Dave, 

Don't you two start trying to fix shit. You'll fuck it up even more. 

In the summer, he wore high black socks with sandals and questionable shorts. 

By appearance, he wore the same t-shirt for 365 days. 

I like this design. I bought all of them. 

He lived in the forest down the road from me. 

A trailer in the middle of a meadow. 

I'm just a guy living in a meadow in the forest. 

56 

Originally from Ontario. 

Years ago, he and his girlfriend ended up on Hornby after they finished a tree-planting gig. She left after a few months.

He has a show on community radio every Wednesday - 

The Phlip Side with Phil. 

He's corny, likes to read and has no patience for pop culture or movies. 

Particularly Game of Thrones.

We bonded over expresso in red neon cursive. 

It just works faster.

He taught me about every tree on my property—the cedars, the firs, the arbutus —what they like and don't like and whether they'll survive the next ten years. 

He humoured me while I waited to make sure I didn't go into anaphylactic shock the first time I ate huckleberries from my yard. 

He delivered the water that kept me alive. 

I gave him my jade plants when I left Hornby because I knew he'd look after them. 

In a parallel universe, they're thriving.

When my cat died, he came over and told me stories about his dog, who'd moved to the island with him thirty years prior. 

Cigarettes and Strawberry Incense

Wearing a summer dress and carrying a bottle of prosecco, I knocked on her front door around 5.

A few hours before I moved into my cabin, her friend helped me clean crap out that the previous owners had left behind. We had a few good laughs, and she invited me to join a bunch of them for a BBQ and a few games of ping-pong over at her friend’s place. Not knowing a single soul on Hornby, I summoned some courage and decided it was time to loosen up my armour. 

The front door opened. There she stood. Her ice-blue eyes were emotionless, save for the aura of hatred that pierced me. I introduced myself and tried handing her the bottle of prosecco—which she ignored. I waited for a hello, an introduction, a thank you, or for her to invite me in. Nothing. 

I stood there feeling like a deer mouse, an asshole, a loser. 

She stood defiant. 

Should I stay, or should I go? 

A shadow approached from behind her: a handsome man in his early 50s with black hair and the same ice-blue eyes. He smiled graciously and invited me in. I followed him down a dark hallway, and she followed me. Her stare burned the back of my heels and between my shoulder blades. 

The house was a haphazard array of dusty knickknacks, faded photos, and dried-up plants. Every pot, pan, dish, and utensil was caked with week-old food and strategically stacked on the kitchen counter like a game of Tetris. Strawberry incense and cigarette smoke hung heavy off the air. Within three steps, I knew that, absolutely, this was a witch's house. 

The man summoned me to a worn-out cushioned bench alongside a massive old oak table littered with half-empty red wine glasses, overturned bottles and bags of weed the size of throw cushions. I tried again to give her the bottle of prosecco, but she turned her back on me. Her friend who I shared the laughs with a few hours before, was nowhere to be seen. Smoke and dust obscured a figure sitting in a high back chair at the head of the table. Still holding the bottle of prosecco, I slid along the bench until I was beside the figure. A woman in her 60s with waist-length blond hair smiled, held out her hand and introduced herself. 

The man I gathered was the son. He accepted the bottle from me, passed it to his mother, whose eyes still hadn’t left me, and asked her to open it. He slid along the bench and sat beside me. I was sandwiched between two strangers in a strange home on a strange island in the middle of nowhere. 

I attempted small talk as the matriarch opened the bottle of prosecco. She poured some into her glass, still holding remnants of red wine, and took a sip, 

“Who drinks this shit?” 

She poured the entire bottle of prosecco over the sink full of dirty dishes. 

I’d had enough of her. 

I stepped out of my armour. 

The sun broke through the dank house, and I saw her clearly. 

Her ice-blue eyes held the faintest flecks of what once was. 

A powerful woman beat down by booze and abuse. 

She steadied herself against the counter, dropped her eyes and let me look at her. 

I felt the strength of the woman beside me and the gentle power of her son. 

Outside the windows, the earth buzzed. Inside, all had stopped. 

She raised her eyes to mine, pulled herself over to the table, sat down across from me and lit a cigarette. 

When my cat died, she brought over a bouquet of white hydrangeas from her garden she brought back to life.

X-Acto Knives and Pink Pomeranians

Ford Cove, Hornby Island

That day at the depot, slicing mattresses with an X-Acto knife, 

he told me he felt guilty for being alive.

Shirtless, leathery and over-tanned,

shiny found objects hung from cords around his neck,

brushed his nipples and grazed his ribs.

His pants, skintight and zebra print,

I’m charming, a recovering junkie and an alcoholic. I’m 56, and I shouldn’t be alive.

A chipped Christmas ball dangled from his earlobe.

Thirty years ago, he had a dream he was a character on Hornby, so he quit his diving gig and left North Van.

I’m a talker. I just hung around long enough until someone eventually gave me a job.

His Pomeranian is pink, 

I think she might be a little disabled.

He grows weed and free dives.

The cops just leave me alone.

He asked me who I was with and told me I looked like I’d seen some shit.

When my cat died, he brought me a black garbage bag full of weed.

Old Fashioned Granola Recipe

here's how to make classic granola - image Stacy Reynaud

It's $20 for 500 grams of granola on Hornby. Why? 

I made my own. Nothing fancy, just old-fashioned granola. 

It's vegan if that makes any difference.

Granola lasts about two weeks in an airtight container. 

Buy a vacuum sealer, and you can keep it for six to eight months! I just bought this one, and I love it.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 6 tablespoons each of pecans, pumpkin seeds, almonds*
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/3 cup coconut oil (melted)
• 1/4 cup agave syrup
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

STEPS

1. Preheat oven to 300 F.
2. Grease a large baking pan (I use vegan butter).
3. Mix the oats, pecans, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and cardamom in a large bowl.
4. Combine the oil, agave, and granulated sugar in a small saucepan.
5. Bring to a simmer; immediately remove from the heat and stir in vanilla.
6. Pour over the oat mixture.
7. Stir well until thoroughly combined.
8. Spread in the prepared baking pan.
9. Bake until golden brown - between 25-30 minutes - stirring every 8-10 minutes.
10. Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool completely*

* I soak my pecans and almonds in water for a few hours and then bake at 250 F for 50 minutes. If you do this, too, remember that the nuts are already cooked and burn when you put them in the oven again for 30 minutes. I learned the hard way! 

* Because we're using coconut oil, the granola sticks together quite well (coconut oil solidifies when cool). I let my granola cool for about an hour, then use a spatula to lift it out of the pan and break it up.

Blackberry Mojito Recipe

What to do with blackberries?

Make blackberry syrup,

then make a blackberry mojito!

Last year, I spent two days cutting down blackberry vines in my yard. This year, they're back in full force. I read that dumping boiling water on the roots will kill them, but I haven't tried this yet.

I'm trying to live off my land as much as possible this summer - I have blackberries everywhere - they're food, might as well eat them - or drink them!

Here's how to make a blackberry mojito. I adapted Natalie's recipe from Tastes Lovely and Dana's recipe from Minimalist Baker to suit my taste.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz rum
• 2 oz blackberry syrup
• soda water
• 7-10 mint leaves
• 1/2 lime (quartered)
• 1 cup crushed ice

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Grab a  highball glass 
2. Add mint leaves, lime wedges, rum and blackberry syrup. 
3. Muddle with the base of a wooden spoon if you don't have a muddler. 
4. Make sure the limes are muddled and the juice is squished all through that goodness. 
5. Stir it up a bit. 
6. Add crushed ice. 
7. Top with soda water and garnish with a wedge of lime. 

Stir it up from time to time as you're cocktailing - it keeps the melting ice flavoured with the blackberry mint lime rum goodness!

Check out my Pinterest for more cocktails.