I've recently joined what I now recognize as a legion. Thousands of us (I do daresay) who are majorly crushed-out on Ivan Coyote, author of a half-dozen books published by Canada's Arsenal Pulp Press. But yeah not just crushed-out! -- also deeply appreciative of their sterling, generous, and funny AF approach to life and advocacy (for self and all others and othereds).
Anyway, I'm watching You Are Here from 2009 and Ivan is storytelling about 2 Mile Hill in Whitehorse and the marsh they cherish but speak about it in the kind of hushed tones that aren't precious and make you cringe but still make you sit up and listen good and prompt, with reverence. Few words delivered and you know how beautiful this place is and how intrinsic to a body's health and hale nature it is. They saw a lynx. They saw a lynx. It's a wild cat. A lynx. Can you imagine. The marsh is a nexus and a gateway and a cradle and a reservoir.
And then it's backfilled to make way for a WalMart and a Starbucks and I had to stop watching and write this because I've not told anyone except the cashier at Kiva what happened early this summer when I was an innocent.
I headed out that absurdly sunny morning with my usual gear. Sturdy pair of sneakers, denim shorts, tank top, backpack with provisions for an urban day or so out and about. I decided I'd hike up the near butte and then see what. So after the butte, I circled back into town from the northeast, crossing the railroad tracks by my least favorite clothing resell joint (Buffalo Exchange) (bunch of twats), very much looking forward to one of my favorite little avenues to stroll down on my way to the library.
This half-block long oasis runs the length of a set of buildings that includes a day care. It's a brick building with character and dimension and there was a stationery store there for decades too. I like hearing the kids outside when I pass by; the yard is enclosed by a slatted fence so that I can't really see inside. It's all natural wood and I think a real sandbox though and the whole atmosphere is so amiable and I think I would have loved being there as a kid. In the seasons when the trees are all fletched out in green, the tall trees provide shade and presence; the lower shrubby trees add their own character. I like walking there because it's a cut-through and off the city street with cars; I just realized that it reminds me somehow of the canyons I loved roaming around in when I was 6 and 7 and 8 years old in San Diego.
It takes all of three minutes to walk the length of this avenue.
I approached it from my usual direction and as I turned the corner, what had been hidden from view erupted into the space before me. The trees had been cut down and the lot adjacent ravaged. It was ugly. It was so abrupt. There was no more avenue. I had just been there a few days ago. All was well. I didn't even think that the new hotel going up on the next block had a foothold here. I hadn't read the local newspaper. I didn't think.
I lost my shit. Completely and utterly. I crumpled right on the spot. I folded onto the ground, crouching and rocking. I must have looked unhinged. I was unhinged. I think a man passing by turned to look at me. I wasn't quiet. I moved my shellshocked self further down the wrecked lane, tucking myself into an alcove just past the daycare, and pulled out my hanky. I keep one of those with me in the summer for mopping up sweat.
I couldn't stop crying, for a long time. Still squatting, feeling five years old in a fifty year old body, wailing in that way of very young children with snot streaming. I've personally never heard anyone cry like I do at my age, but fuck it, no one came around and I was so glad to be left alone with my grief but also really wanting to hold and be held by someone.
Atrocities like this happen. All over the globe. I didn't see this one coming, and it's small-scale but immediately I started bawling my inner eye was like Google maps zooming out and seeing the ecological warfare traversing oceans and continents.
It was quite some time before I could put myself together, and then I shouted a string of foul-mouthed curses because it was a way for me to feel less impotent. Grab that rage and pull it up from the pit of my gut and out my lungs and mouth.
It'll never be the same, that avenue. It's gone forever.
Anyway, I'm watching You Are Here from 2009 and Ivan is storytelling about 2 Mile Hill in Whitehorse and the marsh they cherish but speak about it in the kind of hushed tones that aren't precious and make you cringe but still make you sit up and listen good and prompt, with reverence. Few words delivered and you know how beautiful this place is and how intrinsic to a body's health and hale nature it is. They saw a lynx. They saw a lynx. It's a wild cat. A lynx. Can you imagine. The marsh is a nexus and a gateway and a cradle and a reservoir.
And then it's backfilled to make way for a WalMart and a Starbucks and I had to stop watching and write this because I've not told anyone except the cashier at Kiva what happened early this summer when I was an innocent.
I headed out that absurdly sunny morning with my usual gear. Sturdy pair of sneakers, denim shorts, tank top, backpack with provisions for an urban day or so out and about. I decided I'd hike up the near butte and then see what. So after the butte, I circled back into town from the northeast, crossing the railroad tracks by my least favorite clothing resell joint (Buffalo Exchange) (bunch of twats), very much looking forward to one of my favorite little avenues to stroll down on my way to the library.
This half-block long oasis runs the length of a set of buildings that includes a day care. It's a brick building with character and dimension and there was a stationery store there for decades too. I like hearing the kids outside when I pass by; the yard is enclosed by a slatted fence so that I can't really see inside. It's all natural wood and I think a real sandbox though and the whole atmosphere is so amiable and I think I would have loved being there as a kid. In the seasons when the trees are all fletched out in green, the tall trees provide shade and presence; the lower shrubby trees add their own character. I like walking there because it's a cut-through and off the city street with cars; I just realized that it reminds me somehow of the canyons I loved roaming around in when I was 6 and 7 and 8 years old in San Diego.
It takes all of three minutes to walk the length of this avenue.
I approached it from my usual direction and as I turned the corner, what had been hidden from view erupted into the space before me. The trees had been cut down and the lot adjacent ravaged. It was ugly. It was so abrupt. There was no more avenue. I had just been there a few days ago. All was well. I didn't even think that the new hotel going up on the next block had a foothold here. I hadn't read the local newspaper. I didn't think.
I lost my shit. Completely and utterly. I crumpled right on the spot. I folded onto the ground, crouching and rocking. I must have looked unhinged. I was unhinged. I think a man passing by turned to look at me. I wasn't quiet. I moved my shellshocked self further down the wrecked lane, tucking myself into an alcove just past the daycare, and pulled out my hanky. I keep one of those with me in the summer for mopping up sweat.
I couldn't stop crying, for a long time. Still squatting, feeling five years old in a fifty year old body, wailing in that way of very young children with snot streaming. I've personally never heard anyone cry like I do at my age, but fuck it, no one came around and I was so glad to be left alone with my grief but also really wanting to hold and be held by someone.
Atrocities like this happen. All over the globe. I didn't see this one coming, and it's small-scale but immediately I started bawling my inner eye was like Google maps zooming out and seeing the ecological warfare traversing oceans and continents.
It was quite some time before I could put myself together, and then I shouted a string of foul-mouthed curses because it was a way for me to feel less impotent. Grab that rage and pull it up from the pit of my gut and out my lungs and mouth.
It'll never be the same, that avenue. It's gone forever.
They saw a lynx. They saw a lynx. It's a wild cat. A lynx. Can you imagine.
Today I saw a muttering of cows with wings crouched sentinel high up in a dead tree. I only saw them because I approached the bike path from a tributary I hadn't before, stopping for a pull off my HydroFlask and heard the low-throated lowing of I don't even know what they are! Like tiny shoe-bills or forsaken boobies. They're not buzzards or heron or seagulls or crows how can I not recognize these riparian fowl?
I did see a heron earlier though; and some crows; and a seagull, at least one; and I heard multitudes of other winged creatures, and the wind defrocking trees.
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