North Pole Business with Spagliato

 By Maryanna Gabriel

What a treat. My daughter bought me a truly beautiful dinner at an exclusive restaurant in Calgary. I practiced all day. I wanted to try a new cocktail. Spagliato, I learned, means sparkling in Italian. The waitress was right on it. 

Have been watching women my age on TikTok, doing jumps out of planes and zip-lining perilous canyons, while they say Negroni Spagliato with Prosecco. Looked like a lot of fun and I wanted to join in on the fray.

I have come to a conclusion. Unless the bartender was off, the drink I prefer is a Negroni with gin. Not that I get a lot of chances to be picky about cocktails. 

The blessing of such a visit was precious time with my grandsons, and well... this has led to North Pole Business. North Pole Business is the very best kind, as far as I am concerned. 

I will take mine sparkling. Merry Christmast to all. xo 

Improper Placement

 By Maryanna Gabriel

T'is a mortal blow to have one's garbage rejected. It took me awhile to see the note swinging from the bin. The handle was apparently  turned towards the street. Fail. "Improper placement." Oh dear. My garbage was left behind. 

Likewise, it never ceases to amaze me how a paragraph can seem perfectly respectable and the next day it has turned the wrong way. Do the words do it of their own accord? The edits are completed for this round and already I am wanting to change things. My writer friends tell me one never truly stops wanting to edit. There is a comfort to this and now I expect it, instead of letting the urge take me by surprise.

My legs have forgotten what they were made for so I got out for a ramble. The village was so sweet and the town clock gonged a pretty Christmas carol amid the snow and lights. I felt transported to another era, a more soothing and simpler one. This time of year is my favourite. 

Editing

 By Maryanna Gabriel

The book edits for Walking The Camino: On Earth As It Is have rolled in as I struggle with where to put furniture amid piles of boxes. 

I suppose choice involved with the placement of words is much the same as setting up house; one is establishing a mood, or articulating subtleties of description and feeling. It is creative, artistic, and functional process, but frequently I find myself feeling stymied. 

With time though, thoughts sort themselves from their disorderly jumble, and line up in straightforward fashion. One box at a time. One word at a time. 

New Home

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Wow. There is much to love in my new home. First off there is a forest with walking trails beside me. Eagles screech from the treetops as I putz about. This morning I walked one of the trails and to my surprise, I found that some of the trees had been stripped. I am assuming it is for cedar basketry.

This is the ancestral home of the Pentl'ach. The First Nations in British Columbia have the rights to the cedar bark and were at first directed to strip the trees away from the trails, but this was refuted. Now they have the right to proudly indicate their tradition and strip facing the trails. Someone entirly depleted one tree except for one patch. I wonder if it will survive. 

I alter between excitement and exhaustion as I unpack. Boxes are everywhere. And of course the edits for the book came the day I moved in. 

Country Mouse

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I was raised in a city and I suppose I am used to it but this country mouse has had to shelter from the storm. Knitting relieves stress I find, and I am on my second scarf. Rather than listening to owls, I listen for the clatter of recycling boxes as they are lifted into trucks. There is a gardener at the vacation rental I am staying in who shows up with his mower at the same time every week, an unheard of event on Salt Spring where work and time is a more abstract concept. There seems to be a plethora of leaf blowers. One blows rather than rakes, vacuums rather than sweeps, and bags rather than burns. At least on this street. 

Then I found myself slowing the other day in Beacon Hill Park as I peered cautiously over the steering wheel. I am driving like I do on the island - as if a deer might leap in front of me. Suddenly, a deer did jump out! Good thing it was me and not some of the rage drivers I have encountered - the kind that lean on their horns if I don't hurl the car into oncoming traffic. So I knit. And feel better. In some ways, I am starting to get used to it all. Victoria is a beautiful city. And there is much I will miss. Not just the food but the physical beauty of the heritage buildings laced with Garry Oak set by mountains and sea. But today is my big day. 

I sign the papers. My new home on this big island awaits.

Rest - What An Odd Sensation

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Why is it so hard? The brilliant October sun. The beautiful beach nearby. Time. Today I walked and lay me down. This is Cordova Bay in the city of Victoria. Someone was getting married. Canada Geese were feeding by a stream flowing into the ocean. A woman was rocking her baby. 

And I. I actually relaxed. Wonderful. Thank you for this glorious day. 

Thanksgiving

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Screaming up the highway...

      T'is the season to be grateful. I confess I have been holding out on you. No more waxing prosaic about the charms of Victoria. I am moving to a coastal town on Vancouver Island with a grocery store on the corner of Fern and Pimrose. 

     Given the markets, I told myself it is important to wait but when I saw it, I went screaming up the highway and made a bid against a competing offer. I got it.

     So I am very grateful.

     I wonder what is going to happen next?

Emily Carr House

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

Something hurtful happened to me today so I knew I had to create a special adventure and make the day a good one. I have been wanting to visit Emily Carr's family home for a long time. I wandered past horses and wagons and heritage buildings into the stately yellow mansion that was hers. It helped me appreciate how traditional Emily's roots were and how remarkable it was that she painted ahead of her time in a way that renders her more enduring than most.

Besides, she followed her heart and to me this is always remarkable especially at a time when women's roles were severely defined. Her father came from England and made his fortune from the gold rush in California, not in the way one would think by staking a claim, but rather by following the miners and selling them groceries. He was able to build this beautiful home in the city of Victoria on Government Street. Unfortunately he caught tuberculosis, as did Emily's mother, and both died. The home had fallen into disrepair for some time but now it is slowly being restored. 

After this, I wandered down to a food truck for a delicious
oyster burger  above Fisherman's Wharf where many picturesque shops and houseboats bob side by side.
Tally ho.   

Mosi's

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Best coffee ever at Mosi's Bakery. 

Mosi's is a wonderful Italian bakery near the log house and I went there for coffee and their eggs benny. It was my day to tranfer to my next rental so breakfast out was in order. I am a little startled. I have gone from a log house with wonderful old wood floors to a pristine apartment where no ghost would dare to tread, let alone a speck of dust. Moving is always discombobulating. For one, I can't find my garlic clove. Anywhere. But I have settled in. For now anyways. 

In the midst of this, my publisher has announced he is changing the name of the book so it will have an ISBN from Pottersfield Press, and not Magic Cottage Creations, so I am feeling a bit dyslexic but there you have it. The title is now Walking the Camino: On Earth As It Is and if I try not to think about it all is well. 

Butchart Gardens & The Blue Bayou Cafe

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

After Tod Inlet we just had to go to the Butchart Gardens. It was right there after all. The Butchart Gardens were developed by Jenny Butchart to compensate for the mess left the family company from quarrying limestone. 

The garden has been continuously developed for over a hundred years and has close to a million visitors annually. My daughter and I were herded into the parking lot by a bevvy of attendents and then left to our own devices with a map as we explored. She decided formal gardens were not for her, too manicured, too proper, too inaccessible with lawns one could not scamper across and benches that were hard to procure amid the crowds. She peferred the natural gardens of the forest. Still, it is an impressive legacy to leave the world and much better than the mess it once was. 

Afterwards we decided to go out for dinner as it was her birthday. We went to The Blue Bayou Cafe which was on the water in nearby Brentwood Bay. To the strains of Louis Armstrong's nostaligic s trumpet we munched on Fried Green Tomatoes and Jambalaya while a stuffed crocodile lay on the roof surveying the scene.

All perfectly wonderful. 

Magical Tod Inlet

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I felt blessed with a visit from my daughter and we traipsed into a most magical place, Tod Inlet. I packed a picnic. Todd Inlet is located on the outskirts of Victoria, adjacent Butchart Gardens. The entire area was exploited for the limestone and so were the workers - the Chinese and Sikhs who laboured in horrendous conditions for the cement that was produced.

The trees seemed of the nicer sort, rather forgiving I thought, given the artifacts of an unkind industry that was once pervasive. Concrete and metal protruded out of mossy and leafy hillocks as the maples turned golden and the water sparkled beyond. Such is the legacy of a buried and forgotten industry.

We stopped and listened as a raccoon snuffled along a ravine then watched a crab make its way along the shore. It was splendid as only time with a daughter who lives too far away can be. 

Aqua Cotta Donuts

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I am all in a tizzy. With all of the choices of wonderful bakeries, parks, oceanside walks, and eateries, my head is spinning. Not far from the log cabin where I am staying is an intriguing place called Aqua Cotta. I mosied down for what seemed like an interesting choice, Italian donuts and any coffee for $9. I was given an unexpected surprise. It came with a creamy, salty-sweet caramel butter which surely had no calories. Oh well - you only live once! The latte had a shot of vanilla. I think my heart rate zoomed up dangerously after I was through. 

I wanted to explore Francis-King Park, named after Scout masters or something (I forgot my glasses) and was refreshed by a forest bath of Garry Oak and Arbutus trees as I walked off the sugar. Saanich is a very special part of Vancouver Island and I look forward to exploring more of it. 

The Fantastic Tale Of Frances Rattenbury

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Speaking of frozen in time, here in the log house, I have been sitting back with a book about the more famous characters in historic Victoria.

There is the story of a wealthy woman who never went outside and left a fortune to her parrot, a ghost that haunts the golf course - her shoes found stuffed into the pockets of her husband rolling dead in the surf, and then there is the strange tale of Francis Rattenbury. He was swashbucklingly handsome, and I suspect debonair, and his life was charmed, a British architect who was given fantastic commissions, for one, the famous landmark that is the Victoria Parliament. He was renowned and respected and lived in a handsome mansion on the waterfront of Oak Bay. But here we go - his marriage was dull and it was not enough. He wanted more.

Debonair Frances Rattenbury

 

Alma, a beauty. 

He pursued Alma, a beautiful concert pianist. They moved into the marital home, his horrified wife and children huddled on the upper floor.  Much to his surprise, the new couple were reviled by Victorian society and life became difficult.

When a business partner drowned on the Titanic, a speculative venture was sunk and more bad decisions around money with investments in the Klondike gold-rush that went awry left Rattenbury crippled. Already prone to depression, he turned increasingly to drink. 

With a move to England, Alma, who perhaps found this all very trying, took up with the gardener, a much younger man. In a fit of jealous rage the gardener killed Francis Rattenbury. The concert pianist stabbed herself six times in the breast and threw herself into the River Stour. The gardener served time in jail and was freed years later. 

So there you have it. A big mess when all should have been perfectily splendid, lemonade with cucumber sandwiches, and cricket with white gloves.

Victoria Parliament designed by Rattenbury. 

Victoria Art Gallery - Maud

 By Maryanna Gabriel

I think I must be starved for the arts and culture. I could not wait to join the Victoria Art Gallery and rush in to see the show of the artist, Maud's work. The thing about this gallery is that it is housed in an old manor with gracious curving stairways, interesting inlaid wood, and fireplaces not lit for decades. In 1889, it was built for under $30,000, a fortune in its day. One is not only taking in the shows, of which there were several, but also entranced by the setting which faces an inner courtyard with a strong Japanese garden component just to mix eras and cultures even more. 

Maud Lewis died in 1970 in Digby, Nova Scotia, and painted in a folk-art style. Seeing so many pieces

convey a childish exuberance with colour, one that plays with the senses and uplifts the heart. She had a hard life marked by poverty and disability, but somehow her love of art carried her. She captures life and Nova Scotian landscape, in primary colours and a "naive" style.

It made me feel sheepish for I get twisted in my own work into such a bungled knot - it seemed to me she painted without caring a hoot. The presentation was a testemony to joy. Sometimes art carries us to where we need to be. 

Whiffen Spit & Other Thoughts

 By Maryanna Gabriel

So like her. She swore in Liz Truss and knew her job was done. The death of Queen Elizabeth has been a shock. Maybe because she was just photographed standing with the new British prime minister. 

I have been feeling Henry David Thoreauish in my log cabin. Or Annie Dilardish (without too much of the writing part). Some days I go down a wooded path to the lake below and have a delicious swim, the morning mists rising along with the trout. A squirrel torn in half lay on the path. The work of an owl? If I go too early I run into fishermen which I don't mind, fishermen being prone to silence as a general rule. I watched a mink slink through the underbrush along the shore and wondered if it was he who ate up the salmon somebody had trimmed and dumped ten feet out. We humans are such busy creatures. My hostess says there is sometimes a bear around but I have been brave and generally I come back from these expeditions feeling refreshed and happy. I have needed to be. My brain is very busy. Upon my return, the half body of the squirrel was gone. In an instant, everything can change. 

I drove north to Whiffen Spit on Vancouver Island. It is a beautiful natural break in the Sooke Basin that historically was abundant with food for the T'Souke nation and later home to sawmills, fish-trap pilings, and other fishy type enterprises. Today, fortunately, it is a park. It was stunningly beautiful. I was trying to decide if I wanted to stay for a longer period in Sooke and if it could be home.

I did not get the call. 

Abkhazi Gardens

By Maryanna Gabriel

Have been needing a rest. It was a fun farewell party with tributes, champagne, touching speeches, cake and laughter with dear friends, then breaking camp, and a final pulling up of stakes. (I know I just breezed through something huge with that sentence but one story at a time.)

A writer friend and I went for High Tea; it seemed a very Victoria thing to do. The Abkhazi Gardens was built by a Russian princess and wealthy heiress, Princess Peggy, who found her prince after much trial through World War ll.  Prince Nicolas remembered being a boy in Georgia, and Lenin coming to the house, for Lenin's mother was the laundress. Later, the Bolshevik Revoloution came along and the family lost everything. His father was shot by the Bolsheviks. 

Their home in Victoria house was once described. "Walking inside used to be like walking into a big, golden, jewel-box," said one friend. Together, Peggy and Nicolas built a beautiful garden beneath their hilltop idyll which is a tribute to their love. 

We had the loveliest sandwiches and scones after traipsing through the shrubberies trying to identify varying species. We felt the house alluded to an era of bygone glamour, one in which Greta Garbo lived, as though frozen in time. My friend said much of the city of Victoria was like this, that is to say, frozen in time, where stories about historic presences seem to linger. 

Peggy Abkhazi, it is rumoured, traipsed through the gardens, martini in hand, wearing designer dresses, here captured by sculptor, Bev Petow. After reading her biography, "A Curious Life" by Katherine Gordon it would seem she liked to wear overalls and work in the garden in her later years. Perhaps she is there now. 

Coming Into Victoria

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Today I came into Victoria with my car loaded with goods for storage. I treated myself to a swim, and breakfasted in the inner harbour sunshine on a hotel patio. Divine. Avocado on toast with poached eggs and a bunch of other stuff. Seems the rage these days. 

Quite by accident, and trying to avoid a massive bicycle race around Parliament, I stumbled on the James Bay Market. Such fun. I was so excited to be at a market that was not on Salt Spring. 

Avoiding more bicycles, I picked up my birthday mail, (yay for birthdays!) and some Italian gelato. Love this time of year when the blackberries are ripening, corn is plentiful, and the heat feels like forever, belied by a change in light, and mornings cloaked in mist. 

I am resting in my log house. It is nice and cool in here and I suspect it is haunted. It was built by pioneers and the heavy wood door opens and shuts whether there is a breeze or not. The owner's cat is curled up in the chair beside me and my knitting lies beyond. Idyllic. 

It is good to rest. Packing up 28 years of one's life is exhausting. 

The moving truck is coming and I am almost ready. 

Commanding Rainbows To Stay

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

"You will be surely amazed, when once you
begin to feel what colour means. To find how many
qualities which appear to result from peculiar method
and material do indeed only depend on loveliness of execution;
how divine the law of nature is which is so connected to the 

immortality of beauty with patience of industry, that by precision
of rightness of laborious art, you may at last literally
command the rainbow to stay, and forbid the sun to set."
- John Ruskin Laws of Friesole

I have to admit packing up my studio is hard. I wish I had painted more. Played more with colour. Been braver. As it is, I think of Frida Kahlo while my back acts up. It is a year after my fall and I am frustrated not to be further along with my healing. Frida was bold. She took her struggles and pinned it to the canvas with a series of nails alternated with flowers, monkeys, eyebrows, and Diego. I have already spilled brushes and pencils as if avoiding the box that is their destination. We always think there is more time. And then there isn't. I keep promising myself new and interesting places to create beauty await. I just wish I could teleport a part of the studio and this amazing property so I too could command rainbows. 

Sold

 By Maryanna Gabriel

"No artist recognizes any standard of beauty

but that which is suggested by his own temperament. 

The artist seeks to realize in a certain material, 

his immaterial idea of beauty,
and thus to transform an idea into an ideal. 

That is the way an artist makes things. 

That is why an artist makes things."

- Oscar Wilde 1891

I have sold my house; it has been a bit rough. Of course everything looks absolutely beautiful now that I know I am leaving. Every garden corner created, every dear tree leaning companionably towards the house. This quote by Oscar Wilde seemed to fit. So much has been created here. My children growing, career, businesses, community and contributions to it, paintings, my time at Emily Carr, my  recent master's degree and the writing that went into my book now to be published, the visitors from afar who have healed in the garden where I am convinced paradise exists. It is a most healing place where I have grown so much. 

I must confess that the recent gathering of long time friends in front of my studio brought tears to my eyes. We shared tea, as I served heart-shaped sandwiches with garlicked cream cheese, and tiny squares with cucumber slices the size of pennies. We talked of things past and future, and then trundled about in our summer dresses inspecting this nook and that, conversing happily amongst ourselves.

As we sat sipping from old bone china, a Barred Owl landed in a big old cedar tree, as though it was perfectly normal for a nocturnal creature to show up above a circle of women who have known each other almost three decades, for all the world like this is normal owl behaviour.

We were graced and we knew it.  

Firsts as I Drive East

Worth the geological peril. 

 
By Maryanna Gabriel

Driving to Alberta was different this time. I chose an alternate route. Snow had fallen on my more favoured scenic route, #3, and besides which my chosen hotel in Nelson has not survived the Covid shutdown. Then there was the Merit highway - closed due to floods. So I drove the #1, the Trans Canada.

The first thing I noticed was that the Fraser River was dangerously swollen, at one point right to the highway barrier, and trees in leaf were swamped in the fast-moving water. Then there were the issues of the rock cliffs with wire cages holding them together - not exactly reassuring. Geology no longer feels stable as this was the highway that was swept away by floods last November. 

As I approached the interior plateau town of Lytton, I remembered the fire from last summer that was so painfu for the town. I could see the burning was extensive throughout the pine-scorched landscape. Every town  between Vancouver and Calgary has received funds for roadwork and it was hard to be patient. But I was smart. School was not yet out and I zipped the 600 miles fairly gracefully with one night in a hotel. (The days of driving in one go are long gone. Too hard on the body.) Strangely, there was not a cherry in sight so I had to come to my family empty handed. Where have all the cherries
gone? Every fruit stand was closed. 

It was worth the geological peril to touch base with my family. Traveling right now is so chaotic; everybody seems to be moving around at once. Coming home was much easier as it was a Sunday - no roadwork and not much traffic. I was fascinated by a train snaking its way through the canyon with a striking design on the side. It was then I realized it was the famous Rocky Mountaineer, a luxury ride from Vancouver through to the Rockies. 

Rocky Mountaineer

I started talking to my phone, another first as I needed help with distances and weather forecasts. And feeling a little bored I asked questions like did Siri like me?

"I am your assistant and your friend," Siri replied.

Okay. A new friend. We got along great, especially when I could not remember how to get through Vancouver, Siri all of a sudden decided to give me directions which I badly needed.  

Siri had also been helpful in my capacity as a grandmother in Calgary, I had the phone with me as I put my grandsons to bed, their parents being out for an anniversary dinner. All of a sudden Siri announced, "I don't have any apps for that." What? We were all a little startled by this random pronouncement. I asked Siri to read my grandsons a bedtime story. So Siri did. It wasn't too bad. All firsts. 

Then returning on a spanking new ferry, I rode the Salish Eagle. Our old, Queen of Nanaimo has been shipped off to Fiji. Another first. I feel so much more cosmopolitan, now. Gotta get off Salt Spring Island more often. But it was good to come home to all the green. 

Calm

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

A hummingbird hovered outside my bedroom window. Was this creature of delight telling me the feeders were empty?

It has been time for awhile now. Gotta go. House on the market with thoughts as to my future. Letting go of things accumulated. Not just things, the beauty I created here on this forested property of Salt Spring Island. The gardens, the trees, the sounds of many bird calls.

More, much flexibility as I do the dance with realtors, and prospective buyers. 

The trouble, or perhaps the blessing, depending how I look at it, is my back. The accident last summer... my back needs to heal. It is the twisting and turning, as lawns and whatnot compete for  attention. So, my body compels me in new directions even if my resolve wavers.

A quick check of the hummingbird nectar indicates the feeders are empty. How extraordinary. Well, I must not disappoint the dears. 

When They Leave Us

 By Maryanna Gabriel

In between monsoons, floods, atmospheric rivers, and record cold temperatures, the man I married long ago, died. He was in so much pain. I thought I was prepared. Not that it was a shock. Not. More a quake. A deep seismic plunge that rolled throughout tectonic plates of memory, an eruption that rocked me lose. Cells unlocked and rearranged themselves. Am better today. The ground seems steadier and I think I have located edges where I stop and start. 

Published By Pottersfield Press!

 By Maryanna Gabriel 

It is a dream come true to be published. If you have been following this blog you will know I go on at some length from time to time about writing. 

Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to be an author. I had a special book in mind - one to inspire. The vision of the book kept coming but how I was to write it confused me. As I grew, I said it again in high school. The thread of the dream followed me through the distraction of motherhood and putting food on the table. Every year, I created a vision board of what I wanted. The book was always on it. But the years rolled by. Then I saw an ad and feeling a thrill, I started a writing course at a university. The courses were inspiring, but it was not enough. Wanting more, I enrolled in a program. That was better and I wrote with ferocious regularity. I explored the tools of the trade. Got feedback. Wrote four times more than I was supposed to. Good thing. I needed it when I was eventually accepted into a master's program. Worried about money, I worked hard to bring in more of the green stuff and stuck to my goal, on track with pilgrimage and how it had always driven me. Covid hit. Without the usual social channels, I was able to focus. The book was my obsession as I concentrated. I went deeper and dug further, through a wall of resistance but knowing the manuscript made little sense unless I pushed on through. And now here I am. Being published in 2023. Thank you to Lesley Choyce of Pottersfield Press. I am so excited. 

On Earth As It Is: Walking The Camino has won a second prize, The Pottersfield Press 2022 Award. It is a bit of a stunner. Maybe I can die now except I have too much to do. 

Oh My

 By Maryanna Gabriel

It has been a strange spring. The lilac by the front door has not yet bloomed, the latest ever. I was lucky enough to get an invitation to Long Beach. A friend of mine has a home there. Nine of us women piled into cars and drove the track, a winding highway in reconstruction. I arrived ahead of the others and lo, the clouds parted. I walked a most beautiful beach and watched as the white crests of waves danced in frothy joy in the sunlight. A shell tumbled along the smooth sand. Little pipers jittered in and out of the water and my bare feet reveled in the warmth of it, the smooth sensation of fine sand a healing massage. The wind roared over the sound of the sea, and if I was trying to think a thought, it was blown right out of my head. My poor sore back straightened and my lungs gratefully breathed. This is how it should be. It was as though I have been enduring so very much, for so very long, and a curtain had parted, showing me how good life is and can be, a barometer I had forgotten. Like heaven. Or a memory from childhood. Or before one has been tumbled about by bad behaviour. Over and over I said, thank you, thank you.

Later we were to sauna, read a'loud, write poetry, sing, cry, laugh, and feast, as we shared stories after three years of not coming together. The morning we left, a rainbow glowed in front of the house. Oh my. 

Coons Keeping Warm

 By Maryanna Gabriel

Covering their noses...

The wild life here on Salt Spring Island abounds. Sometimes I hear strange noises in the night. I had not been under the house for a couple of years and I had to check on things. Lo, a disaster! The insulation was pulled down and arranged into two big piles. Piles? It looked like dead bodies. Coons. A friend of mine is a biologist. I asked him why the raccoons did that. 

"Trying to stay warm," he said. Seemed logical. 

"What about their noses? Doesn't the insulation hurt their noses?"

"They just cover them with their little paws."

Alrighty then. What a mess they have left. Glad they are warm. Now what am I going to do?