Reconnecting with nature and community in the inner city.
It was work as usual on the building site, I’ll share with you our work on the leach field tomorrow, but for now a break from the cement and soil, let’s delight in the beauty of ordinary objects seen anew.
While we waited Jason began strumming his guitar working his way into full one man band mode with harmonica and tambourine by mid morning, we slowly slinked back to our warm beds to be rocked by the gentle melodies. I begsn drawing again, my sketchbook has been staring me with blank dissapproval for some weeks and it was a relief to reacquaint myself with my right brain’s wordless depths. a delicious breakfast on a cooking stove, hot tea and we realised how little we needed electricity if we lived a more low key life, and how wonderful it would be.
Laina had driven 6 hours that should have been 4 in a whiteout with a nervous natured dog. She was super stoked to relax and even more so to hear in detail how it is best to kill a chicken humanly for the table, people will always surprise you. Then the live musician bega to strum and whirled us away with his guitar, fingers impossibly fast and voice low and mellow. Then n the way home we met Sam’s beautiful dog Tyson who would not have a bar of us doing a side eyed bac away whenever we approached unless there were treats involved. Then home with Jason with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros singing us into the night.
The towers crew began to hike up the mountain, people we chatted to couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t just take the shuttle to the top, they just didn’t get it. We threw snow and watch it fall, I was ambushed by snowballs and of course Dylan ran and ran. The ground looked reborn, fresh and crisp. We walked in each others footprints and when we veered from the path sank to our knees.
We trekked until the footprints ahead of us began disappearing under powder, then double paced down to the Bavarian where bar wenches wore lace and something akin to lederhosen. The beer steins were as tall as my forearm and we ate mountain priced beer battered chips and trout like we hadn’t seen food before.
Then we bundled out into the snow again. A snow plough passed and left an icy slide in its wake. We slipped and slided, landing hard. The boys began “ice surfing” on their feet down to the valley. Then sleepy, so sleepy we returned to the towers where our Den Mother, Griffin, told us stories about grave robbing and schemes of how to get Sam skiing up the mountain for free which involved hiding in a ski lift hut overnight. Then our lights went out, we’d run out of electricity, and it was time for bed.
Exhausted and crusted in cement and dust we couldn’t wait to get showered and on the road again for happy hour pizza, this time with nearly the whole gang of interns. Over dinner the conversation turned to best injury and of course Bris pulled out all the stops including teo broken arms at the same time and a massive gash on the head from friendly grappling. For me Sam won though with his skiing injury inflicted by a wayward grandma that left his spleen on show. Yum yum eat up!
Then with high spirits we drove to the hot springs, with headtorches on high we trekked the fifteen minutes into the gorge over rocks and boulders. Two people and a dog were already there and were unimpressed to share the small pool with seventeen odd extras. The water was perfect and the rocks soft with long silky moss. We chatted and watched out for shooting stars in oh so much sky, each star slowly twinkling out as the clouds rolled over. We didn’t know it then, but snow was waiting for the new day.
