Chopin Pinao Concerto #1

We wake to Chopin Piano Concerto #1 the second movement Romanze (Larghetto). I don't know how it happened. We bought a radio alarm for S's parents for Christmas and somehow ended up giving it to ourselves. It has the capability of playing a CD and waking you up to your favorite song. We resisted You Got Me Babe by Sonny and Cher because of Groundhog Day implications. Chopin seemed somehow the right choice. We started with the first movement of Concerto #1, but the orchestra was far too raucous. We wanted to ease into the day, especially at 5:45. The second movement starts off with the orchestra just gently rousing you to a lovely simple piano solo, almost like a nursery song played on a music box. The song is then repeated with variations to get the blood moving. I imagine Chopin composing the little tune to rouse George Sand after a night of revelry or maybe as a way of making up for the fight they had the night before. Perfect for getting up on a coldish morning. The thing is to get up before the piano solo starts, otherwise it can lull you back to sleep. This morning was completely clear, all the stars out. It was a chilly 10 C which doesn't sound too bad, but yesterday it was 16 C. We entered the house sweating from our labors. Not this morning. A bracing but not rude welcome to the new day.

What is it with the moon?

An urban dweller's question: How come the moon was directly overhead this morning and the size of a dime and last week we saw it go down in the first few minutes of the walk the size of a giant pumpkin? I know about the refraction factor at the horizon but what gives with the location difference? It was the highest temperature in recent weeks this morning, 16 C, and dry. Shorts, no coat and still we worked up a sweat. Very humid, left over from the rain of yesterday. Generally, we take Saturdays off and Sundays we walk when we can. Yesterday morning, Sunday, was a "soft" rain as the Irish say under umbrellas. It seemed like a grind and we projected our discontent onto the woodpeckers who seemed to be congregating for a meeting about whether to leave or not. Apparently the Northern Flickers we see in the winter are not the one's we see in summer. Those who are resident in the warmer months go south and the one's who were farther north come here for winter. This happens all over North America, with some Flickers going as far south as Mexico. We are sorry to see our summer flock go and will miss their screeching call. Our consolation is that the sprightly Juncos are back having parties in the bushes.

Bears in the Early Morning

Frankly, the first worry was bears. Humans have an uneasy relationship with the Ursa species on the north shore of Vancouver. They like us. They really like us. We thought we were immune because of our proximity to a major thoroughfare until a year ago when S heard a snuffling sound on the back lawn and we watched as a lone, large dark figure rolled on the lawn in ecstasy with our large, squirrel-proof bird feeder. The signs all over the neighborhood this summer didn't help, not just printed signs either. That pile they call scat (sp?) with all those berry seeds mixed in for texture. The broken fences. Then there was the friend we met on the way out of Safeway one morning on our second 5:45 walk who remarked that a bear had visited in the night and had made a sorry mess of the neighbors garbage all over his lawn. Generally, the kindest, gentlest man we know, he was beside himself with fear and rage. Oh, and he lives just beside the most isolated spot on our walk – just by the Hydro wires. Bears have that effect on us. Even having grown up in Alberta, I have never feared bears until I came here. Now they are our terrorists. They saunter down streets and strike fear in the hearts of the most sanguine. So as the darkness gets longer and the sunrise later, we wonder if we will come nose to nose.

Smells

The sun didn't come up on the walk today which makes me wonder: When we go on daylight savings time (or is it when we go off of it?) will we see the sun again? Sun or no sun, the smells are delectable. There is a smorgasbord of smells. Pine/spruce in the early walk, then sage, a little bit of lavender and oregano, I think. Then there is the smell of rain forest earth like no other smell – sort of dank with the smell of the sea and earthworms mixed in. There is something about the humidity in the air which brings all of this to the fore. Sort of puts you in touch with that dust from which we came and dust to which we go. We walk the distance between in our lives and its better to walk it than to sit it. And it is not just the illusion that we are getting somewhere; it is filling our lungs with the air around us and making us part of that creation, that interminable ongoing process we love to think we are above and so beyond. Uh, uh. Part of it, humbled by it, attuned to it, mindful of it if you walk in the early morning like God in the Garden. I think it allows me to absorb and appreciate the creatures I will encounter in the day, especially the humans. Speaking of which, lots of joggers today; lots of dog walkers; and one dog jogger. Fifty percent of passersby say, "Good Morning". One quarter say, "Good Morning" first. I looked at the face of the clockwork man in the orange coat (who never says hi) as we passed this morning. It was a gentler face than I remember... or maybe it was mine.

Rain - just a little

Okay, so I shouldn't have said anything about rain yesterday because it rained today. It wasn't a serious rain, mind you. It had just kind of decided to go ahead and do it and it hadn't built up a head of steam yet. After our first walk in the rain we went out to MEC and cased the rain gear. Being wet on the bottom half of your body is miserable. It awakens memories of wet accidents in the early childhood. Warm blankets turning wet. As a species we hate being wet. Rain pants, then, with longjohns underneath. The thing is when it is raining temperature is crucial. You need to know so that you can decide about layers. Is it a three layer day or a four layer day on top? You don't want to be more wet from sweat than from the rain itself. It was confusing this morning because my iPhone said 9 C and our home thermometer said 11.9 C – a huge difference in terms of layers. Then you need to decide: hood or umbrella. Having been raised in Calgary, I still hold a slight bias against umbrellas. They are effete the oil barons said. But here's the thing. You can look around more under an umbrella, a crucial element in any walk. Looking at the sky even a little makes a walk or breaks a walk. Even today with the clouds when we turned east on Viewlynn as the sun rose behind the clouds we could still see a distant mountain range and all was right with the world. Our hoods are like blinkers, we can see neither up nor to the sides. Just the wet pavement in front. Hardly worth the effort. Need to think that through. 'Cause the rains are a comin'. That we know for sure.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

We are a month into our ritual. It started because we both wanted to lose weight, but it has become a spiritual discipline. We arise at 5:45, throw on clothes and walk for 45 minutes in our neighborhood in North Vancouver. How could it possibly be interesting? Well, we saw Jupiter just the other side of Orion this morning, the moon set rapidly during the first five minutes and the sun rose at the end. Pretty spectacular! I didn't even write about the skunk who thought better than crossing our path. Now we know the differences between 15 C, 12 C, and 9C. 15 C no coat; 12 C coat and gloves at the ready; 9 C get the gloves on. In any case prepare for your eyes to stream and your nose to run. Rely on the guy in the orange coat to pass on Kirkstone at the same place every morning without a word. Just like clockwork. And the rain? It has only rained on us three times. It is as if at that time in the morning, the day is deciding what to do with itself. I know. All Vancouverites know it cannot last, the interminable rain must must come. But stay tuned.