The Storm's Wind

Thunder rolls over the loud hum of the generator as rain taps the assortment of zip-tied tarps over my tent. The smell of campfire has remained, soaked into my $100 Stanfield since the surprise night off of shift 12. But the wind brings the smell of wild roses through the screen of my tent window, which today, I leave open.

Last night we ate the rose petals, Nootka rose, Evan-with-the-long-hair says, they’re great in salads. I think of Nootka Sound and I miss last summer in Tofino. But I’m inspired to harvest some of the pretty pink petals around camp and garnish a summer salad on day 1, shift 14.

For the first 9 shifts we cursed the mahogany prickly stems, I uprooted them around my site. Now I apologize, I see that I could’ve had roses right outside my back door. But I hadn’t seen roses here before, and I forgot that they have thorns.

I hate it here sometimes. I lay in my bed which is stacked on milk crates and I want not to exist. Not until I’m packing for home and hitting the road, 16 hours back to the island. I love the people here but I’m sick of them. I love the forests but I’m sick of them, too. I love the river, refreshing and powerful as it may be, but I’m also sick of it.

I want the depth of the salty ocean.

I want coastal rainforests, where each inhale feels like you are breathing with the trees. The damp moss, so green, an indicator of the fresh life which seems to always linger in the air.

Here, it is dry and you can’t feel the breath from the trees, sometimes they barely seem alive at all. Second growth.

A breeze of crisp, cool air, like a tap on the shoulder, a reminder that they are alive. The rain patter picks up and I hear a truck roll in from town, beeping as it backs into it’s assigned parking spot, where it will stay until it’s departure at 7am tomorrow.

The thunder sounds closer now and jogs a childhood memory of mom telling us it was God rearranging his furniture.

When I was little, I used to run out in the storms and save toads that were hopping around the front yard of 14 Derby St. Mom always thought they were leaves from the red maple being blown by the storm’s wind, but I could tell the difference between a toad and a leaf. Last night, Autumn caught a toad and, as one does when catching toads, we all posed for a picture with it before letting him go.

The rain’s like popcorn, or that scene from Totoro where he jumps at the bus stop and knocks all of the droplets off of the tree limbs and leaves because he loves the sound on his new umbrella. It’s drowned out the genny now. This - is exactly what I wanted today. I think to myself and laugh about Mitch’s comment last night, how the sound and look of the genny in the dark when you’re on mushrooms is only generating bad vibes. He could win funniest in camp this year.

There is an energy here, in remote Northern BC, which feels overwhelmingly powerful. I used to be so aware of the death around me - not ‘death’ but certainly a lack of life; slash piles and debris left behind - trees that didn’t make the cut but got cut down anyway.Dry, brown, rocky, sometimes burned black by forest fires. It felt like the land was haunted, sad and hurting. lonesome. I cried a lot the first few years.

Now, I cry only for the bear or for when I miss you. I’m not sure if this is an improvement - being accustomed to the lonely land & being lonely with it. I don’t want to be accustomed to missing you & I don’t want to let myself let go. I am afraid.

I have to learn to trust, as I trust that the rushing Morice River won’t sweep me away when I choose to bathe in it rather than in the shower trailer. As I trust that the sparks and ash from the campfire won’t be blown to land on the fuel tank and explode. Or that every time I walk through camp, I will remember where the grizzly was shot, three times, and killed. And that when I’m warmed by the sun, like a rock on the beach, I will think of you.

But I have to trust that you are not the sun, you are just a dream; the depths of the sea which will forever call to me.