Flowing

Such different worlds! While you have been immersing yourself in street art, I have been immersed in water these last few days. Almost literally. The weather news continues from B.C., with this latest report, about rain this time. I noticed  a leak in my ceiling about a week ago, on the opposite the side of the house from where a similar leak occurred a couple of years ago. Although this house was rennovated before I bought it, the former owner was an enthusiastic do-it-yourself-er, with pretty good taste but mediocre skills. An itinerant handyman who resembles Willie Nelson, though without the kerchief, tracked down the problem and fixed it, and now I'm hoping he'll agree to come over and do the same with the new problem. It rained over a hundred mm in Vancouver between New Year's day and the 2nd. On New Year's day, David and Annie and I spent an hour and a half in the parking lot of the ferry terminal, waiting to board the 2:30 ferry over to the Mainland. Annie text messaged behind the fogged windowsof my 88 Toyota Corolla, while David and I forded major puddles to reach the more spacious waiting room. One puddle was so deep he had to piggy-back me, because I wasn't wearing boots. By 4am on the 2nd, when Annie and I had to wake to get out to the airport, the rain still had not stopped. When I drove out to Horseshoe Bay later in the morning, for the return trip to Gibsons, it was almost frightening to see the amount of water pouring off the mountains. Think of bathtub taps fully opened, the gates of hydro dams releasing whole rivers. The torrents poured through cracks in rust-coloured rocks and tested barriers erected on the mountain side of the ferry terminal at H.B. There have been landslides further along the highway I drove and it's easy to see why the land would just give way under the pressure of all that water. Miraculously, as the ferry crossed Howe Sound, I noticed threads of blue in the sky, and by the time I drove off and up the hill to Lizzie's, to pick up my dog, the sky had fully cleared and the kids were stomping around in the flooded sections of the property, in unseasonably warm and brilliant sunshine. Crazy. At home, I found that my kitchen ceiling leak had spread and water covered part of the floor. The fridge seemed to be leaking, too, and when I tried to track down the source of moisture in my car, I found the spare tire compartment full as a washtub, actually floating the tire!
   Now that it has been dry for more than 24 hours I'm thinking that the fluidity of the first days of the new year may be auspicious. After several good times over the holidays, mostly with Annie, Lis and family and David, I'm getting back to work. School starts next week and I have the usual prep to complete, but I've already contacted the artistic directors who claimed to be interested in reading Casting the Angel, and have started some serious research on the new play I'm being commissioned, by my College, to write. Did I mention it? About the now-closed down "school" for disabled and mentally ill children and teens? I'm thinking of themes, images, and eager for the challenge of putting together a piece that will relate a particular story while addressing the larger issue of how we, as a culture, deal with "difference". At least that's what I'm thinking now. I did visit the novel I started last summer, but I'm saving it for the summer of 2007. It's easier for me to work on a play during the school year, because I seem to be able to go at it in pieces, much as you solve the lack of time problem by working in your patchwork style. Here's to a rewarding year of work ahead, for us both --cheers!