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An essay by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend.
What I Remember Most
~ Sha’Tara ~ [a life sketch by Sha'Tara]
What I remember… what I remember most at this moment: the susurration of expended waves retreating from a sandy shore. The call of gulls. The reflection of the moon stabbing indigo waves out to the horizon. The loneliest sound ever: a foghorn from a tiny lighthouse on a small rocky island bare of trees, practically submerged at high tide. Black arrow-like cormorants skipping the top of waves on windy days, disappearing behind towering foaming grey crests of ice-cold water. The booming thunder of giant waves crashing against pitted, scoured, concaved cliff faces. Brown kelp floating lazily in small coves crowned by shedding arbutus.
What I remember most at this moment: the clickety-clack of boxcar wheels measuring out endless parallel ribbons of steel from city to city across flattened prairies, crossing dried gulches and coulees over trestle bridges and only the grey-black, grey-green stunted stands of spruce, pine and aspen in August drowsiness to be seen, day after day. The fields of swaying, ripening grains waiting for the combine. The marshes and white alkali flats. The shorebirds’ choreographed flights. The piping of the small black headed gulls. The herds of black Angus and red Herefords grazing bare rolling hills. Silent pumpjacks nodding their heads as their stingers sought the blood of the earth, drawing out the black gold, drop by drop.
What I remember most at this moment: watching the great sea-going freighters sailing in and out of port. The noise of night traffic of cities that never sleep. Many-hued mixed reflections of street lamps and neon signs splashing over wet sidewalks and pavement. The bright ever-changing, mesmerizing green-amber-red of traffic lights. The flashing of red brake lights. The so-gaudy flashing neon signs reminiscent of a Blade Runner nightmare scene. The smell of exhaust and garbage. Crowds moving as ants on their pathways intent only on their unchanging destinations. The outstretched hand that said, “Can you spare me a dollar?” The feeling from reaching in my jean pockets and coming up with change meant for myself, a coffee or partial fill-up for my VW beetle. “Give and it shall be given unto you, a full measure…” and so it has always been, and to what end?
What I remember most at this moment, the cities. Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver – mostly Vancouver. Through the changing decades: the Sixties, the Seventies, the Eighties. I returned to the City, time and again, to see the whitewash: new paint, taller buildings, larger malls, faster, wider freeways, better camouflaged poverty and destitution. The drug crazies talking gibberish, throwing up. The homeless, drunk and drugged, deformed, grotesque, too sick to eat. The private lives of zombies in shadows, occupying places vacated at night by the pigeons. Harsh laughter and curses drowned temporarily by the passage of a bus. Paddy wagons making their rounds, picking up trouble makers, ignoring the fallen. A dark figure hunched over a fallen one, pulling off shoes, searching for a hidden stash from a drug deal. Me, standing stock-still as the hunched one straightens, flashes a knife blade in the air, retreats. Is the fallen, dead? “I shall not fear, fear is the mind killer, the little death…” An ambulance screams its presence: a noisy vulture in the night of day, the night of time, the night of civilization, a steel-clad Valkyrie disgorging its attendants: morgue or hospital? Heaven or Hell?
What I remember most at this moment: the River. At first, intimidating. But it beckoned, and from the first times gingerly paddling a cumbersome canoe along its banks to finally travelling the miles up, miles down, tenting when out of time, I learned to love this dangerous entity. Eventually, with the kayaks, the miles rolled on and on. There were sand dunes to lie on, and gravel bars to bend over and study the colourful stones vying with one-another for attention. Rows of brown mergansers swimming along rocky shores, feeding. Gulls gathering on islets, calling, calling, always hungry. Geese flocking in swampy shallows and leaving, waddling single-file when unsure about my appearance. Vultures picking after dead salmon and always, the eagles in their cottonwood perches surveying their domain or circling the open skies while below could be heard the rattle of the kingfisher, also hunting, also always hungry. The River has many moods accented by passing seasons. Early Summer means overflowing banks and additional miles of gentle paddling through flooded meadows and otherwise dried streams. It means access to seasonally closed areas, paddling over gates and fences where cattle graze in Winter. Or over roads that meander through blackberry protected woodlands. The call of unseen songbirds comes from everywhere then… And in Winter, at low waters, the gravel bars stretch out, begging to be experienced, to be walked and listened too. Now is the time for nature’s silence to be listened to. The time to approach great piles of driftwood; giant trees toppled from eroded banks now waiting another snow melt to move on to the sea. Time to look up into the sombre skies and fall in love with the master painter’s art work in cloud; to see, no, to feel, storms rising in the west; to anticipate the wind that will raise chop, perhaps even waves, over the grey waters. Then to dance with the River but miss one step and she flips you and drowns you. Should she care?
But what I remember most, at this moment? Ah yes, something else, something deep and troubling. The things that never happened. The certainty that changed shape, colour, taste. I remember well, the “something” that was to be. I felt it. And I would know it whenever it came to me. I would latch on to it and make a life with it. At first it was a simple thing: escape one place, go live in another. I did that, an easy enough thing to do, but the other did not have what I was led to believe I would find. Mix with people then – or travel around. Surely it would be there, among the crowds; among peers; among co-workers. Perhaps among people of like mind – or like phobias, better put. Perhaps in a bit of land, a house, a few rag-tag possessions to call my own; a place, an address, something sure. Perhaps a family. A sense of belonging. No.
What I remember most now? I was born an alien. I lived an alien. I will die here, just as much an alien. The memories will become remembrances and form another “past life” to look back on and wonder. Just wonder. Was it a good time, or a bad time? Was it a mix or both, or are such questions simply pointless? But I can say this for certain: it is good to be able to remember; to say to myself, I was there. I saw that. I did that. I felt that! And through it all, I taught myself that life is Loki, the Trickster, and whatever you expect, she will give you what she wants and take from you what she wants. You are but a shadow in her presence – but know this: that if you cast a shadow, you exist. Thus your remembrances, whatever they be, will be true .
Baby I've been here before
I've seen this room and I've walked the floor
used to live alone before I knew ya
But I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Our love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
(from “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen)
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Splendid memories so vivid to visualize.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful piece.
Lady Mary Ann
Ron
Love ya!
Jane