Saw an eagle today, just drifting stark black and white over the downtown core. No one else looked up and saw it turning in lazy seeking circles. Even though the pace here is pretty laid back, no one had the time to look up and take note of, or enjoy, their surroundings.

We saw one also, before, when we were playing Go on the peninsula. It was silent and smaller than I thought it would be. I almost missed seeing it because I thought it was a gull, there are so many that fly around, but it was darker, so then I thought it was a hawk, but then I saw its unmistakable “bald” head. Tres cool, because I’d heard there were a lot of them on the island, I mean, they even have a sightseeing package where you can walk along their known flight paths, but I hadn’t actually seen one prior to that. Reminded me of the vivid azure Peregrine Falcons that live on the roofs of some businesses in downtown Edmonton…not many people know THEY exist either.

On the UVic campus, they have all these domestic-looking and really cute bunnies, but I found myself comparing these adorable nibblers to the wild, long eared, long legged hares that range over Edmonton, and for some unfathomable reason I prefer those rangy boxing Alberta hares to the cute BC bunnies. I twitch whenever I think of that. Summer is ripening. May 1st was technically the first day of summer, we had no maypole, but there was no snow here;  we had strawberry milkshake pink and white cherry snow and  starry drifts of white daisies, and shocking electric purple violets clinging to drab cliffs. Now, the darker wild pink roses are starting to bloom, and hot orange and yellow flowers I have no name for, burning mini suns everywhere, and the leaves are turning a graphic glossy green, and all summer the blackberries will ripen and swell until they burst into crow-black, juicy berries to stain any mouth or stray fingers in the fall.

Storytellers have value. If they have the courage to use their voice, they really can change the world.

Every musician whose lyrics you never listened to, because you were caught in the beat, in  the cheery rhythms, every incomprehensible poem, abstract art piece, cubist painting, every dance, all these things matter. They are all stories, all songs, all art pieces, and performances and showcases, and lovely larger than life warm sustaining things; even the crazy hippy wailers, strumming their one string guitars in the rain and mist, wearing  bright colours and lovebeads, and wonderful hats, they have something to say too.

I can hardly believe that once, I used to try to make myself to be nothing, small, insignificant, when that’s so clearly just not where my heart lies.