Feb 7, Chilling in Cowtown

It isn’t until the late afternoon that I finally hit the road from Rossland to Nelson. The sun begins melting the tremendous snow here and the beauty of the mountains is spectacular. Having never driven through this part of the country before, I am struck by how secretive the mountains are: they never reveal the destination until you are directly inside. The landscape too, is always surprising, cutting here, dropping there, rising into the snowy peaks, descending into the valleys unpredictably. This is so unlike the prairies, where your destination unfolds before you well in advance of your arrival. It has no secrets. It invites my mind to wander, whereas here the mountains insist on my attention.

My companion on this leg of the trip is lisa b. and her new CD of spoken word (see http://www.luckygoat.org). The road rises and falls, curves, digs into the earth, until I feel like its path traces the bodies of the women in lisa’s poetry. Lisa played a show with me in Victoria before I left and the sound of her voice connects me to that place, invites me back when I’m ready. Lisa is on tour shortly too, across Canada so be sure to visit her site and check out a reading when she’s through your city.

In Nelson, I get the sweet shock of a lifetime when Alison—my good friend from Edmonton who I stayed with during the recording of my cd—unexpectedly arrives at the show. Her presence among this intimate audience makes me reminisce about how many of the songs of the CD came to evolve, so I am giddy and nostalgic. After the show, we celebrate with Jagermeister (another reminder of Edmonton) and laugh and catch up all night, grooving with the last set of the Wasabi Collective at the hotel down the street.

It’s a long drive to Calgary the next day, but I’ve got Nick Hornby’s “How to be Good” on tape to soothe away fatigue. It gets cold and colder and I’m descending into winter. I’ll hibernate for a few days in Calgary until the madness unfolds in Lethbridge. My friend Cory is flying into Calgary from Saskatoon and we’ll hook up with Craig in Lethbridge. The three of us have been writing to each other all year, journaling, hypothesizing, ranting and such and often the emails conclude with a wistful wish that we could really hash out these words in the flesh over a bottle of wine. So the moment approaches and the reunion promises to be . . . memorable.