Day 211

i went to the tea house to read and chill. the old brick building is on a street corner downtown and looks heavy and content- like a distant relative on the couch after christmas dinner; familiar but fresh. i don't know if that's legal punctuation but those ideas needed to stick together.

from inside of the big windows, i admire the front bay and fireplace. no gig today. christmas music fills the atmosphere and i wonder to myself if people really like these classics as much as they seem to say they do. to be honest, i've noticed seasonal songs see a decrease for myself in overall pleasantry each year and bring less fulfillment of a 'christmas spirit', whatever that means, once the tunes have been played for more than two weeks. i remember the tiny, singing shoney bear tree ornament. i did like that music from his plush stomach.

i feel fortunate to know and have a good relationship with the owners of the tea house. today they bring coffee to where i've got bob dylan's chronicles on the table. an internal monologue starts to flow and i scorn the awareness of crafted words that i always fear will never be recovered. 'i pour cream and watch it chase its silky tails into the murk, tripping and rolling over its creamy momentum until all wisps have mysteriously pulled any straggling color beneath the dark surface. then, with a flick of the spoon, the heavy white expands up and i, like an eye in the cosmos, watch the smokey explosion of the liquid mushroom cloud in my cup.'

at the age of twenty-one, i'm sure some friends from high school have company cell phones or starched, tie-requiring internships. others probably work at grocery stores. most are writing papers and studying and taking big tests to sum up their last few months. a semester has vicariously flown by. i'm sitting in canada and describing what it looks like to prepare coffee and reading books about the music that's inspired me to play in this very building and also making a different attempt at faith while wondering what 'moving mountains' really means. maybe that's a little imbalanced, but maybe it isn't. maybe craig kelley was right in that documentary last week when he talked about breaking into the life you're alive in instead of viewing it as an escape from the one you didn't. maybe this is my internship- except with no human boss and a beard instead of a tie. and this blog.

i'm seeing that it's kind of hard to be an individual in the picture of our crew's relationship to the rest of this small town. we have a cool group of foreigners/non-locals in a good location. this isn't a bad thing at all but there's definitely less individuality in overall greater community consideration. that's probably a good thing.

still, that isn't easy for me. it's becoming more natural to be comfortable and attentive in this bigger picture but i know myself and have to take time to wander on my own. sometimes for a season. sometimes for an afternoon. sometimes for a few moments to stir words into coffee and sometimes by trying to remember these thoughts with scribbles in the back leaves of a national bestseller.

Day 185

you know those moments, mostly conversations, where you wish you had a pen that was a recorder or a tiny video camera to tape a story on the spot of its conceiving moments? its the kind of stuff that would make an awesome, 5 minute mini-documentary.

i have those all the time and it happened again today.

i am in 'downtown' of an already small town after walking a few blocks from home in the light drizzle of a grey mountain afternoon. the air is still humid for mid november and i savor these days before the sudden and lasting drop hits us all.

the tea house is a small coffee shop owned and operated by two people from church and who's son plays drums with us on sunday morning. they cheerfully remembered me from sunday and the piano and harmonica. there's no wifi here, but that's okay. i have text edit. and i can finally concentrate on some design and reading. i bought a book of tennessee williams' collected stories at a used bookstore in some beach town in california a few summers back. the book has accompanied almost every trip since then.

the owner told me about not having wifi and continued to talk a bit about society and failures to communicate in the context of internet availability in most every coffee house. i agreed completely and, seeing as i had no internet hah, we kept chatting at the counter.

i like the layout here. there are muted earth tones on the wall and paintings of local artists for sale on the walls. there's a particularly attractive corner, out of the way, in the front of the shop. the street and sidewalk is on the other side of three, long windows and a fireplace is tucked away from both the front door and counter.

i asked if he has live music. we talked some more and have ended up scoring friday night gigs here starting the last friday of november when they start staying open later to enhance the attractiveness and personality of downtown. he wants to help support christian artists instead of anyone just looking for a buck and said that he was already a big fan of our music. between the keyboard that greg offered last week and the band mates i've already made, i'm really excited about this opportunity that's been given me.

rainy afternoons can be exciting after all. i've swallowed the last cold drops of coffee and might design a poster for them to advertise their shop and the new live music on friday nights.


p.s. we were invited to lead worship for the snowboarder's for Christ group's annual leaders retreat in banff. awesome. looks like i'll get to check that place out after all, dad.

Day 144

the humid, rich breath of evergreen forests hung in the overcast, autumn glow all day today. the pacific northwest. sometimes i would pause working and, standing on the little path i've leveled midway up the hill, look at the still lake water. the buzz of silence, perhaps more a silky stillness, is momentarily punctuated by the wisps of wings of a crow overhead or the splashing, crashing dash of a duck from flight to the still surface of water. i've seen several bald eagles as well as they quietly drop down from the treetops and glide above the glassy backyard lake.

i found three snakes today and also, surprisingly, a nest of turtle eggs. i know they are the eggs of turtles because the first 'round soft white rock' broke against a shovel stroke. i had to keep moving the rest of the sand in the area, but i've relocated the rest of the eggs to a different part of the yard where the sun can still keep them warm. hopefully they're cool with that.

now i'm inside- tired, full, and clean. i bought a really good photography book online, undoubtably the best i've ever found in my lifetime's broad bookstore experience, after finding it in a bookstore in portland. until that gets here, i have a solid short stack of material i'm rotating through throughout a morning and evening. it's supposed to rain tomorrow. if it's enough to keep me from making some constructive progress in the yard, then i will definitely enjoy reading all day.

i've also been contacting people and have turned in resumes in fernie. i have a hookup at a restaurant there and am really needing a pre-established job for a smooth border cross, so hopefully this process continues to go well. a friend in new zealand, tim if you remember him from very early posts, called the other night to talk and catch up. he's coming back to north america to join our crew for the winter and confirmed his confidence and prayers to the fulfillment of these final winter arrangements. many others have as well, which is huge and greatly appreciated.

now, i'm going to shamelessly drop a couple plugs. one's for some of my photography from the summer's adventures (innocent enough), along with some extras i wanted to have up. you'll see, as they're labeled accordingly. the second is for the website that some of these, along with many more, will soon be available for purchase as posters. you can see how this might be sheepishly presented, unless you're very interested in art, photography, or supporting a young traveler.

joelieske

wallblank.com

Day 69

the third week of camp ended in routine fashion. the q-town camp songs are so stuck in my head now that i felt a little stir crazy as they were being blasted across the field of departing campers.

the camp directors organize a weekly bus that goes into town for staff to take to get supplies. tonight they were going to see the new batman movie as well, but the thought of riding with a bunch of talking people to pay money to experience a formulated evening was not exciting to me at all.

jen's brother was playing at a coffee shop in nearby nanaimo. the music didn't start until 7ish, so we took off to the canadian version of borders. 'chapters' was filled with the smell of new books and a built-in starbucks. after some coffee and a scan through the fly fusion magazine, i found my place in the music/photography section. they're always together in whatever bookstore i've ever gone to and i think this is great.

i stood alone in front of the shelves of band and artist biographies and realized it would take about twelve years to be satisfied in this section, so i picked up the scrapbook of john lennon. this is an amazing recreation of mementos and copies of original song scribbles. i'd read the bob dylan one back at borders in the usa. i bought a new edition of a music magazine since it was cheaper. we stopped at a sporting goods store where i found some sweet clearance shirts that not only were needed but helped to fix yesterday's issues. the recognition of the smell of left shoes all pointing one direction on a sales wall was a scary and sudden reminder of the terms like over-pronation and motion control and adidiprene and gel. we got out of there soon after this.

the bands were playing at a place called the buzz and was laid out in a J pattern. the door was at the bottom left tip of this shape, the counter was on the inside left of the curve, and black wooden tables and leather seats and folding chairs scattered the long stalk that lead to the brick-backgrounded stage. the musicians often bounced on and off stage after songs as they played covers and some originals. i had a so-called 'canada moment' in this shop.

outside, on the right side of the stalk, there was a patio where people congregated at a wooden picnic table to talk over the music. someone had a couple small puppies and a little girl in a sundress and two small boys dressed in p.j.s chased the little animals around the concrete. across the median and street was a suburban subdivision where a canadian flag flapped on a pole in some backyard. back inside, most of the girls wore sundresses and many guys had beards or dreads or plastic-framed glasses. after walking in and standing around a bit, a barista came from behind the counter and offered me a free latte. the people i was with thought she was hitting on me, but i think they'd pry just made an extra on accident. free is free and i like free. anyways, this canada moment revealed a truly vagabonded utopia.

i'm back at camp now, sitting next to a piano keyboard on a dimly lit stage. the bus rolled in a few minutes ago. it's been a good day. tomorrow is 'staff development day' and sunday starts the next junior high camp and a new week of teaching video editing and shooting and such. i'm ready.

Day 17

today started as a work day, but a couple of the guys asked if i wanted to get in on a prank and, seeing how it is my responsibility to make videos of any important action, i left the office to do just that. sounds like a good reason, right? here's how it went down..

one friend, jen, had left her car, a teal caravan, at the ferry lot over the weekend when she went to the mainland to visit her rents. we left camp a few hours before she was to arrive back, bringing with a massive tube of saran rap and several cleverly-worded posters for the decorating of this otherwise bland vehicle.

i brought a full battery, a fresh tape, and the gl2 canon video camera along to 'document the important action' for future video use. this turned out to be an awesome experience in on-the-go, documentary directing that i'll begin to edit tomorrow morning.

after the forty-five minute drive, we found her van-tastic vehicle (that was one of the titled signs we prepared) and rapped the entire thing with heavy duty saran. surprised with our speed, we were forced to wait around the parking lot for an hour until the ship was to arrive.

documentation during this waiting period captured everything from the poster's lame word-plays to passerby's reactions to our van's artwork to our own reenactments of '"move that volkswagon rabbit!"- the car we drove in with, and finished with mocumentary, over-the-shoulder and blank-stare interviews among ourselves, the five villains. finally the vessel docked and we hid- i jumped into the bushes, of course, to get the reaction shots, while the others scattered around the parking lot. we waited. i'm going to stop explaining here because i'm not going to be able to do justice for the moments that followed.

i can't wait to go to my office in the morning to edit and produce this.

a couple guys that i hadn't gotten much time to chill yet went down to the dock after dinner and jumped in for a quick swim. freezing-cold water.

and apparently, there are several poetry-interested people here and they got excited by my idea to have some sort of weekly original poetry reading, complete with low lights and djembe accompaniment. we'll see how that goes.

also, tonight after group bible-study and swiping some left-over cookies from the kitchen, the two new zealand dudes and i went for another jam session. each experience has been jelling better and better and we're gettin some creative, malleable stuff, which is exciting for all of us. it'll be interesting to see where we might be able to take this..

Day 15

today was my day off and i slept until 1:15 in the afternoon. with sleep out of the way, i'll be good to go for however long i'm up for tonight and for the beginning of another work week tomorrow morning. after awakening and having one jam session with some peep and doin some good work in 'blue like jazz', i went for a short run to the fitness barn and lifted for a while before running back in time to shower and have dinner.

i found satisfying and incredible clarity and calmness as some of us drank hot tea and leaned against the rail overlooking the trees and water- the kind that comes after running and lifting and showering and eating meat and chillin. after dinner, the whole camp headed into town to dairy queen, but instead of going on the bus some of us took the orange tercell with the excuse we would be going to wal mart afterwards.

in wal mart, we managed to play hide and seek and accomplish some successful isle-sliding before splitting up again and hiding around. on the way back to camp, i took my empty mcdonald's iced coffee cup and, under the inspiration of dave, taped it to the top of his little orange car. the ride home was filled with hilarious expressions of other passengers at stoplights and such who desperately tried to gesture to our attention the presence of that little plastic cup that still managed to stay solid on the roof as we were driving down the road. it was silly, but it was a ton of fun.

then tonight, the two new zealanders shaun and paul and i went up for a jam session and ended up with some quality material and beats and sounds and ideas. i've been listening to our recording over and over since. this will be built upon and expanded over the summer. i've made prospective plans for next week to go to a music store where one of the staff chick's brother works so i might get a discount on harmonicas and one other potential purchase for the addition of our little band.

last side note, i've discovered couchsurfing.com. this amazing international community offers access and shows availability from chill, usually art, outdoor, music, writer, or photographic-oriented student or teacher denizen who have an extra place to stay for pre-arranged, overnight travelers. the profiles also show levels of availability that range from offering a couch for the night to the willingness to meet prospective guests over coffee just to discuss common areas of interest and such. i have a three day weekend sat-sun-mon next week so me and a couple people might try this out sometime during that time.

i've still not made it out to the dock to spend the night. i want to quite badly but by the time we're done jammin or listening to music or chillin around, it's just too late for it to be worth it. like right now.