Finding Centre

In Search of a Wisewoman

The goldfinches have just arrived for breakfast. Standing at the window, I watched them first land in the ancient hawthorne on the boulevard, then flit to the lilac and then to the birdbath for a drink. It’s a short dart to the sunflowers the birds seeded into my rosebed. There they hang upside down inspecting the nodding heads and deftly choose from the garden’s buffet. Sir Cat is mezmerized and not sure where to concentrate but shrinks notably when I say they are “my birds !” Yesterday he was rewarded for depositing an juvenile rat on the doorstep, a dark and foreboding form that is inclined to prefer my heritage tomatoes, the Ox Heart and Brandywine, over the common Early Girl. The deer breached my barriers and have munched the entire row of green beans that I planned to process for my freezer. The whole yard is sere. Drought has rendered this year a bust. I’ve all but given up on my limited hours of allotted watering. The leaves of the Sambucus nigra ‘black lace’ crumbled in my hand.

The whole valley that is a magnet for tourists, the centrefold for years of the beautiful BC Magazine, is on fire. The air quality is the worst in the world. We have gone from being a global envy to being a dire stat. It’s hard for the eastern provinces, even our immediate neighbour to grasp how awful conditions are. They lament endless rains, thunderstorms, and a summer that never was. BC has long been labelled “Lotus Land” primarily because the politics were a bit different and this was the most likely place where we legislated changes that were ahead of time. A standout province for its stunning geography of lakes and rivers, of valleys, the one true desert in Canada in the south, a huge varied topography that stretches to the Rockies on the east, the intricate rugged coastline on the west, sandwiched in the north and south by American states. A province that has rich First Nations cultures. A province that called to the likes of the explorers like Fraser and his ilk.

My roots are set deeply, agricultural roots with a particular love of this area. I am glad our father is long gone because it would break his heart to see the province on fire. He would grieve for all the wildlife that is being displaced. He would get that when the rains come, there will be no forest to mitigate the runoff. He would curse the greed of those who put profit above the health of the planet for he was a ruminator who preached the value of water away ahead of his time. My farm roots repeat “There’s always next year,” - the mantra of those who refuse to be defeated by conditions. I will hunker down grateful my home is not in immediate danger, and dash out to refill the pail for the urban deer and top up the birdbath, argue with Sir Cat about why he can’t go out, and wait. What else can one do?