For the past 2 years we’ve traveled to New Zealand in the winter to get a welcome break and a taste of their summer. This year we didn’t and I’ve been thinking that may be the reason why this winter feels so long. No break. But now I suspect it’s just part of the program. I look back a year ago and find that I was feeling the same way then. Waiting for winter to pass.

At one point in January the island of Maui came to my attention as a maybe winter destination. A couple of friends like to travel there and one of the things that attracted me to the idea was that it only takes one flight to get there (Vancouver-Maui direct), 5 1/2 hours, not counting the travel from Qualicum Beach to Vancouver, another 15 minute small plane flight. Any other destination that may be of interest takes much more effort to get there. So this could work, given my aversion to air travel these days – it takes a lot to get me up and motivated.

As I was contemplating the warm winds of Maui, along came the news of the people of Hawaii getting a bogus text message that an incoming ballistic missile had been launched and was on its way. Whoa. Goodbye to that bright idea. Decided that I didn’t want to go to a place that may have missiles pointing at it, with a fucked up warning system to add to the mix. Besides, what would you do if you received a message like that? Take cover under the nearest table?

So here I am. Waiting out winter.

The first part of February was a joy. Noticing the days getting longer, watching the bulbs start to appear and the winter blooming shrubs flower, some of them fragrant. Some of the large pots of early daffodils I’d planted in the fall were starting to bloom. When the tiny iris reticulata started blooming I announced that spring had arrived.

NOT. By mid month, winter reappeared to mock me, and another heavy snow came and stayed, covering these little flowers and wiping out the camellia bush, with its hundreds of buds just starting to open. I’ve spent a lot of time staring out the window, watching, willing it to go away.

I spent the first part of the month bent over a killer jigsaw puzzle of an owl in a winter scene. This is the closest I’ve been to an owl for quite some time as I haven’t spotted them in the forest for awhile. I heard a news report from Tsawassen on the mainland of an owl attacking a couple of humans who were minding their own business, jogging and biking, which sounds seriously bizarre. That must have been one confused owl.

This time last year I was entranced by the release of the television series Planet Earth II, narrated by David Attenborough’s dulcet tones, and this February saw the new Blue Planet II, about the wildlife in our oceans, that is just as spectacular. Outrageous cinematography and compelling stories highlighting the sheer wonder of the creatures that inhabit the oceans of our planet (think about fish using tools or sea lions coordinating intricate group hunting plans to take down a school of yellow-fin tuna). Stuff like this makes me wonder once again how humans can possibly retain the idea of that our species is somehow superior to the rest of nature.

The Olympics were also a great winter distraction. Loved the snowboarding and free-style skiing that resembled skateboarding on steroids. Oh. Wait. That may be an unfortunate turn of phrase. When young Cassie Sharpe, a skier from Comox up the road from us, won the gold medal for women’s ski half pipe I was cheering out loud and the semi romantic drama around the ice dancing where the Canadian golden couple won yet another medal was great entertainment. I was also cheering for the young New Zealand bunnies, Nico and Zoe, both only 16 years old, who won bronze medals, in half pipe skiing and snowboarding, breaking the country’s medal dry spell. Fun.

Cassie Sharpe – photo Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

In the studio I haven’t been painting so far but I did interrupt (with great relief) my Swedish Death Cleaning project long enough to set up the camera to play with some close up and macro photography, mostly of flowers, practicing lighting, focal length and manual focus.

Now that March has come, the temperatures have risen slightly, the days are longer still, the snow is vanishing and the garden is slowly coming back to life. The GreenHouse is full of 25 large pots of leafing out fuchsias and seeds I’ve planted are sprouting. Lots of gray days still but when the sun shines it’s glorious and hopeful.

Winter days and probably cabin fever have turned my attention to dreaming up change of scenery trips. Time to think about going exploring and once again expanding the perimeter. So far I’ve booked a few road trips – a trip to the west coast (Tofino-Ucuelet) this month, to the mainland coast mountains late spring, back to Quadra Island, as well as a much longer, farther trip this summer.

I know that this account reads like the weather report it is, but hey, I’m Canadian! Talking about the weather is one of our tribal characteristics. Bring on spring.

There is a new “thing” out these days, another concept which, if followed, promises that you will be more organized, more productive, more happy, more free. It has to do with  STUFF.

It’s called Swedish Death Cleaning and it goes like this. As you get older, you systematically declutter your life’s accumulation of STUFF, getting rid of it with the goal of minimizing the amount of stuff you have that ultimately would be left for others to deal with after you are gone. For anyone who has had to sort through and deal with the belongings of a departed loved one realizes, this is not an easy thing to do.

When we went to live in Asia, back in 2007, I went through a total purge of our house. We lived in a large 4 bedroom house that included a basement full of boxes of stuff, much of which had never been looked at since moving in 6 years prior. Not wanting to lug all of this with me, I got serious about getting rid a lot of it. I looked at everything, every piece of furniture, every cupboard item, every stray box with one question in mind – “When I open this on the other side of this planet, will I see this with a smile on my face?”. If not, out it went. I gave things away to friends and neighbours – treadmill, piano, tools – I filled two trucks from 1-800-GOTSTUFF to cart away, and I furnished an entire apartment that son Mike, who was staying behind, was going to move into. The rest went into the moving van. It was a very liberating experience and I felt so much better once it was done. Lighter.

But even then, there were things that did not get sorted to any great extent – my own personal papers, photos, clippings, writings, letters, as well as some of those dead relative boxes I was not capable of dealing with. 26 boxes of the stuff. This is what it looks like:

Large wicker chests, plastic bins full of file folders, other assorted boxes of varying sizes and shapes. Inside are all kinds of things including letters and snapshots belonging to different deceased family members. I have a box full of letters written by my grandfather to my grandmother many many decades ago that I inherited from my mother who also no doubt was “gifted” these when they cleared out her mother’s stuff after she passed away. I recognize all the old handwriting – my father, my mother, my grandparents. I have no real urge to read all this stuff, but there’s something about that handwriting that makes it hard to just pitch it. Peeking into other boxes, I find old letters from high school friends written to my teenage self in the years after we moved from Montreal to Toronto (almost 50 years ago!), old term papers and essays from university, journals, notebooks, souvenirs, magazine clippings, stuff stuff stuff. Big sigh.

So my project for this month is to Get A Grip. To sort through these boxes and shred, recycle and figure out what to do with this. I can already see a problem. Memory prompts. Finding certain things leads to a trip down memory lane, a huge distraction from the task at hand. But this quest may not be just about how many sheets of paper I can shred in an hour or a day and if I look at it as the journey it is, it could be an eye opener and not such a bad thing. We’ll see. And, like the feeling of the big pre-Asia purge, I’m sure I will feel better not being weighed down with all these boxes of unopened memories.

Shredding My Life

After a week of this I’ve reduced the number of boxes by 40% and filled up bags of garbage, paper recycling and shredding. A good start. I have yet to dive into the really hard stuff – letters, journals and photos that feel a bit like mine fields ahead, but I take heart with the description of Swedish Death Cleaning as a “gradual” process. At least I’ve made a start. No doubt current generations will have an easier time of it as no one seems to write letters or print photos anymore. All you’d have to do is a couple of clicks to reformat a hard drive and you’re on your way. Off to the great unknown.