I am reading The Botany of Desire. A plant’s-eye view of the world by Michael Pollan (2001). It was recommended by the artist I travelled with the other day and I think the entire world has read it, sauf moi.
Today we visited the bookshop (and homespun (knitting, felting supplies) on the island. The owner Marnie has the most extraordinary patience and was great with my son who is a discerning, picky but voracious reader. (Do not say the word fantasy in a book description to him, or he’ll turn the other cheek). It’s true that he’s read a lot of books and can be tricky to match. Once he has a book in his hand, he devours it and nothing interferes and he’ll read into eternity by that author. Every year or even several times a year on Cortes we visit Marnie and he heads off into a new batch of spines.
Lovely day today between rain and weather systems and naps. We’re heading off for a night plunge into the chilly ocean. Or rather I am the rest of the family just spectate, encourage and bear witness to my shrieks and the determined, stubborn Taurean will not surrender til she’s frozen her legs off. It’s some kind of strange tradition. It would be a great deal more sensible to just go into the sea on a sunny day, but that would be too simple.
It’s lovely also to catch up with people here. Today at the cafe we had lunch with a big gang. The sun is coming down on Cortes Bay out the window. It’s an extraordinary spot and vista we are blessed to visit here. Grandma has a new washing line that is very impressive. It leads off into the trees where previously only the deer would skip away up to.
It occurs to me that bad manners begin either from a point of ignorance or increasingly in my encounter of them, arrogance (and entitlement). It seems strange that people might age into arrogance rather than away from it. Perplexing. Age, surely, should relieve one of such limited and indulgent parameters.
I have very little tolerance for bad manners nor respect for people who exhibit them. There’s one particular brand of self indulgent, contemptuous, dismissive bad manners that is particularly intolerable. When I encounter it, often in the ageing male, I can’t help but visualize the granny or mother rising up beside the individual and commenting: you were not raised to this! Get over yourself and cop on.
The rain was gone today and bright blue Cortes day replaced it.
Lots of laughter here, the girl cousins whom I love are joyful and radiant, their mad-lively-anthropologist father chases and tickles my son all day and he screams, pleads for mercy and then returns for more!
We did tee shirt making ensemble, tho’ I was gutting a fish, so did mine from the sidelines.
There are studio visits on the island at the moment, so people come by to visit the studio here and see and buy Grandma and Larry’s pottery.
Grandma and Larry have gone off in the canoe to the lake, the boys are playing badminton and we’re sitting on the deck nattering and reading.
Grandma Suzu taught me to gut a fish this morning. I gutted my first pink salmon and very much enjoyed it. I watched her gut his brother, then she handed me her father Ben’s fish scaler and let me do the second one.
At one point, it was a fairly bloody and Shakespearean affair, but I loved the solidity of the fish’s body and the feel of it. Getting the blood line, dark red bit out was the toughest part, but he was clean looking and handsome by the time I was done with him.
We’ll be eating him soon.
I am getting more and more useful.