Endless Beautiful Days

I heard the song in the video above on YouTube. A rather remarkable young Italian boy sang it, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Last night, I Googled the words of the first sentence of the song and discovered it was written and sung by Brandi Carlisle, a woman I admire, even though I’m off popular music. I’ve seen her in collaborations with amazing artists. Joni Mitchell’s late-in-life revival was driven by Ms. Carlisle. What a woman! What a singer! What a song!

But wait! Don’t click on it and listen to it. I listened to it and watched the images, but I couldn’t understand the lyrics clearly, so I turned on closed captions and that helped me realize to whom she was singing her song, and I was deeply, deeply moved. You can also Google the lyrics, but without the imagery of the video you would not know to whom she sings.

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It was a very warm day yesterday. I as outside at 7:00 am to get a head start on watering all the plants. Then, at 9:30 our morning forest walk with our friends had everyone gushing about the weather and their love of life at this time of year. When we got home, I had a long Zoom call with Steve and then the brood had lunch.

Once lunch was over, I was keen to get to work outside. I finished the watering and then I got to work on trimming the growth in the cracks of the courtyard and then cleaning up all the mess. There was a gentle wind that kept me from overheating, and I was glad for it.

As I watered, clouds formed. and I was thrilled because the water wouldn’t burn off quickly as it often does. I did a very thorough watering, taking lots of time with each plant. I love my plants and gardens so, so much that it’s a pleasure to feed them, especially when they are showing signs of being thirsty as my Plumb tree was.

The morning walk, plus doing all the watering tuckered me out. By 1:30, I needed a rest. But what always happens, as my rest goes on, more and more I want to get back to work. So, we went into the village for some rebar that I can use to build a Deer fence around my Horse Chestnut, a favourite tree, and I also got more plants to fill holes where plants died in the Winter.

At 4:00, I slid happily into the spa. It’s the most wonderful way to relax. Then Her Highness and I went for out afternoon walk before coming home to another delightful evening with the brood, dinner and a movie.

I love my life now that the good weather is here. And my love of Pinecone Park has grown with the emergence of the garden. I had two seizures yesterday, which was weird, but I thrive in this solitude and love doing my chores. Slowly, slowly, Pinecone Park is starting to really shine.

At dinner time, it got quite dark. I prayed for rain, and it came. It was, what I call, angel piss. It was very light rain, but it persisted, and all water is good. All my watering yesterday is still in the ground. 

Grayson may be here this coming week. I’m going to ask him to set up the chairs and my outside table so that next week, perhaps, I can have my dog-walking friends over for tea after one of our walks. The gardens look so nice right now, I’d like my friends to see them while the weeds are green and there are little, tiny Daisies. Soon enough, it all will be brown.

Last night, I pondered my regrets. I’ve always said I had none, and I was telling the truth, but I thought I was being asked about things done or not done. But I do have regrets. I got to thinking about them because I had a sense of longing for a man to put his arms around me, not in a sexual way, but in a loving way.

I regret being unable to partner with someone. I’ve spent years wondering why, but since my diagnoses from Dr. Shoja, I’ve gained plenty of insight into why, in all probability, I was doomed by childhood parental neglect. I saw what neglect did to Rhesus monkeys deprived of parenting. It was in my psychology class at UBC. How could I doubt Dr. S’s diagnoses of my condition, and her belief that the cause was childhood neglect.

I wanted a partner, and I wanted a child. More than anything, I wanted a child. My childhood was plagued by dreams of isolation. I felt disconnected from the human race because I had no story, no history, no people. When I discovered I didn’t want to have sex with women, I was crushed, and everyone thought it was because I was gay. That was true, but a lot of my anguish was about not having a son or daughter who would connect me, bind me to a baby and it’s mother, even if the mother was paid.

Those are my regrets. Some wonderful women and their partners shared their children with me. Those relationships were the best gifts of my life.

And there was Steve. He was so handsome; we charged into our relationship from the moment we met. We dated every weekend for a year because he lived in Seattle. And then we lived together for 14 years. He is never alone and lives to party. He is in the company of others every evening and his weekends are packed with things to do. And you all know I live and thrive in quiet solitude. When we broke up, he’d had another boyfriend for four years and he was casually dating outside of his two partners.

I need devotion. I’d never had any. That’s when I realized that my failure with Steve was likely tied to my upbringing. People have heard of illiteracy. I diagnosed myself with social illiteracy. I had never had to negotiate with an intimate when I met Steve at age 30. I was uncomfortable and nervous with people early on. Since my breakdown, that need for solitude magnified many times over.

Thank God for my friends. Particularly Dwight, Steve, Beth and Bruce. These are my logical siblings. And Dwight and Beth have children, and their children give me a feeling of what having grandchildren might feel like. And I have several logical cousins, wonderful people with whom I’m not so frequently in touch as I am with my siblings—especially John and Bunny! Thank God for friends.

My last regret is AIDS. Not because I got it, but because of what it did to my community of gay men. There were a lot of us in the professional theatre community in Vancouver. The plague was a horror. And then, there was how we were treated. Homophobia raged. I was saved by the cocktail, but I regret that human error let that virus loose on mankind.

Elder Cedar

Thursday was another gorgeous sunny day. Her Highness and I walked early in the morning, and it was beautiful. Early morning is such a lovely time to walk. The Cottonwood trees are filling the air with their sweet fragrance, and every shade of green meets my eyes.

Then we came home to start on the shed. I got an hour of work done before stopping for my monthly Zoom session with my UK stuttering group. We had a small but very good meeting, and then H.H. and I went into the village to shop and to request prescription renewals for two meds from the clinic.

Then lunch and back to work on the shed, but whoa, my back gets sore from all the bending over, and, of course, I run out of breath all the time. But that’s good because it tells me it’s time to have a rest. So, with a couple of good rests, I got the entire shed sorted. It looks fab-u-lous! And I burned a lot of crap just in time before the fire ban takes effect.

When I finished the shed, I took a break and a spa, and then Her Highness and I went to walk the Elder Cedar trail. I’m so glad I found this trail to walk because it is flat the entire way, plus there’s the stream (for perhaps one more week) where Sheba can drink, and I needn’t carry any water for her.

Once back home, I was too pooped to do any more tard or garden work. I’d been moving much of the day, and it was time to stop and enjoy my evening, taking pride in the work I did in the shed. I am seriously looking forward to doing more work today.

Today I’ll water all the beds and clean the courtyard. Those are my goals for today. There is nothing but sunny skies forecast for the foreseeable future, and next week is likely to be in the 20s, so there’s lots of watering ahead, and lots of time to do more chores in the yard and gardens. Woo hoo!

I can’t believe how much I love this new pattern in my life. I do my shopping and we take our walks, but every day I do chores, and I absolutely love it. I love being active, even at a slow pace, I love being outdoors, I love making the place look better, and I love that I’m so happy and functional even though my asthma is so bad. 

I feel very secure. I have years of wood, and I’ve met two wonderful workers, and I’ve found two gardeners all though our Facebook page (except for Grayson who came from Di). I’ll keep needing help, so it’s great to have the successes I’ve had to give me confidence and security for my future here at Pinecone Park. We’ve just entered the season that makes life jubilant. I walked Elder Cedar in just a t-shirt on top. Gardening is my form of play. There’s always something to do, and I’m in ho hurry.

Here are photos I took yesterday while walking in the Elder Cedar trail.

This is the stepping stone bridge over the creek in Elder Cedar. In Winter
it is under water and a raging creek.

The trail is nice and clear in most places. It takes constant vigilance by
GALTT to maintain the trails.

This is the park matriarch.

Here's tree felled in the bomb cyclone this past Winter, This is
a small root wall but some of them are nice-to-ten meters high.

This is such a privilege to walk through, this magnificent grove
of trees and the sound of water gurgling through the creek.

Moss is hanging everywhere, It is a true West
Coast rain forest.

GALTT builds walkways over the marshy areas.

The enormous Maple trees shine in a beautiful light 
green light. They form a magnificent canopy.

The Fern understory is beautiful.

Come Visit the Park

 Wednesday began in high energy. I got right to work with chores inside the house before walking with our friends on the Ricki Ave. trail. I chose that trail to see if the prednisone is making any difference to how I do on the Ricki hill as I climb it.

Once home after our wonderful meander through the forest, full of small talk and laughter, I came home to Zoom with Cathy. We hadn’t chatted in quite a while, so we had a lot of catching up to do. And then it was time to feed the brood before attending to more chores—this time, outdoors on another beauty of a day. This sunshine fills me with energy.

And the energy it gives me makes me want to work, so the afternoon began with cleaning the interior of the car. What a horrid fucking job! It took hours, mind you I’m wanting every single needle out of the car. I get OCD-ish when I am cleaning. And. My back! Holy Jesus it gets sore, but that’s probably a good thing because it makes me take a rest.

But, oh how clean the car is now. I must help Regina move soon, and so cleaning the car makes me feel better about helping her and people seeing the state of the car before I cleaned it. It’s impossible to keep the house and car clean with all the needles, pitch and dusty roads, not to mention a dog who gets all kinds of crap in her hair and then gets in the car or the house to shed it all.

Once I was finished with the car, I was done. Working on the shed had to be put off to today because I like to unwind with Her Highness walking the Elder Cedar trail in the late afternoons. So, that’s what we did, and then I came home to get into the spa. It’s my reward for working.

We’re in for another long stretch of good weather, and that means watering the garden beds is back on my schedule, demanding a lot of my time. But that’s why I love living here, and I’m felling that very, very strongly right now. The past year was a bit of a downer. It started in May when I noticed that my breathing was laboured.  And then, in August I had the worst seizure I’d had in many years, so I stopped entertaining, and all through the year I worried about what was causing the poor breathing and the implications of the condition.

Now that I know and have a treatment plan, and now that Springtime is here and I am outside every day, I am profoundly happy to be ‘living’ more fully and feeling happier about life. I love that I have a nice clean car and that I’ve been doing things every day outdoors. I can hardly wait to do the shed tomorrow. I set myself a project every day. When the shed is sorted, I’ll be getting started on the yard and the gardens. I’ll set modest goals for every day; rainy days will be my days of rest. I’m feeling terribly happy, so….

Last night I did a walkabout with the camera. Here are photos of early Spring in Pinecone Park. Until two years ago, when I hired Bronwyn, all my efforts went into planting, weeding and watering. Only when I hired Bronwyn did I learn anything at all about gardening. She taught me about pruning and different ways of fertilizing and aerating the soil.  As you will see in the photos and read in the captions, what she taught me has brought fucking amazing results.

This is a garden that borders on the courtyard.
The bare patches is where Hostas are emerging.

This is the patio where I will have the table and chairs soon. Plants are 
slowly maturing around the edges. They are all recent plants. The paving
stone path, edged with Spanish Moss I hilt two years ago and it has settled
well. I will work to grow more moss between the pavers.

This is Butter Burr taking over my garden, but I love it. It's so pre-
historic and unusual. This garden borders the deck.

I'm pleased with this garden, beside the Butter Burr garden, because it
was difficult to get growth under the tree, a Japanese Maple that I love.

This is my Camellia. I've had it for six years and
it barely grew. But ... the past two years has seen
it quadruple in size. It had lots of blooms this year
and now there is tons of new growth.

This was a huge patch of native Salal. The Winter before last killed it, so
last Summer I built this wall of rocks and planted a garden that has really
taken well. I'm attending to the bald patch where the Salal was in the Fall.

This garden is beside the gate that leads into the forest. I own more land
behind the fence where I put branches that fall and so on.

This garden is under the trees and separates the small field where I
have three Aopple trees, a Lilac, Japanese Maple, Ornamental Cherry,
and some Lavender. It is a fairly busy field. On the other side is the bare
open yard you can see in the photo above. 

I built this garden around the base of a tree two years ago and 
it is thriving. The Bleeding Heart conceals a container in which
grows an Evergreen Clematis.

This is the Clematis, growing on a trellis Pete and I
made for it to grow on.

This is the patio where I eat. The Hostas and other plants will
soon be much larger and the Hydrangeas will bloom. And ...
I will clean the patio.

This is my Fern Garden. It borders the house and gets little sunlight.
As I cleaned up the yard, I put all the ferns that I found here to live
and so I'm very attached to this garden. They are all rescues, and they
will be much larger as the fronds grown.

The Butter Burr from above.

This is a plant and I forget its name. It is powerfull and beautifully 
fragrant and it's about to bloom. It's in a huge container I bought 
when Imoved in and it's right beside the spa, so when I am in the
spa for the next two weeks, I will enjoy a beautiful citrus smell.

I'm very excited about this: Six of my eight Blueberry bushes ane
bursting with berries. This has never happened before and I am
over the moon about it.

And again: three of my Apple Trees are blooming well and 
this is a first. It truly excites me to be dad to all these plants.

Look at all that new growth on a Plumb tree I planted 
two years ago. Bronwyn pruned it and I fertilised it
and I expect with all this growth to get a few fruit.

This is a garden that separated my front weed field from a jungle of
Salal the covers my land to the street. It can only sustain Deer-resistant
plantings, harsh sunlight in the afternoon, and trees beside it that 
complete for water.

This island is in the very wide driveway I have. It is wide at the
entrance so as to support four cars. I did not plant the Daffs, nor
have I ever watered or otherwise tended to it, but Henri cleaned
it up so I will maintain it now. It, too, must be Deer-resistant.

The weed field is my front 'lawn.' Right now it is bursting with white
Daisies, Buttercus, and Dandelions, all in bud (except the Dandelions) 
and I feel good about feeding the bees, insects, and birdies.

This is a Hrose Chestnut. A friend gave me a seedling and I have been
husbanding it ever since. Last year. the Deer got it the day I planted it
and before I got a fence up. So I was relieved to see sech great growth
this year. I have mulched and fertilised with love.

This is a down year for the Rhode. But Henri did wonders with the 
ground underneath it. He really cleaned it up and it looks wonderful
to me now. It is rich with growth. Every little branch is bursting with
buds for new leaves. It's going to be a great Summer to watch it
grow a nice new coat.

This is a garden I made two Summers ago. The ferns were there,
so I added  Peones and some ground cover and it looked much
cleaner. It's to the left where you come into the back yard and
onto the courtyard (a large paving stone  area between all three
buildings: house, studio, shed.

This is the wall of the shed I see all the time. I planted the Ivey
and three bushes that have merged into one giant ball of free
that I love. It is all evergreen I love having green everywhere.

This is my trellis. When you're in the courtyard, it
conceals part of the shed.It's six years old and it
thrills me because with the fountain in front of it
it brings a lot of green to the courtyard where once
there was nothing.