Day One Hundred and One: Beautiful Day

I kept waking last night, my elbow aching from my fall yesterday as I left the school out the back door on day one hundred, the snow a perfect powder of white and I step, step, stepped until I found myself sliding and then crashing on my side, taking the ice to my elbow like a spinning top. And on day one hundred, I'd thought. I'd been so proud that I hadn't fallen. Maybe it's symbolic -- the pain -- I'd thought.

Now as I walk down the lane, I stretch the ache out of my stiff elbow. I jog a little with no back pack because I was nearing a melt-down trying to get the clothing-stuffed bag onto my shoulders when Michael drove back into the yard, walked back into the house, and said, "What's wrong. Here. Let me take that."

I'm walking.

"Good Morning," says a voice in the darkness.

"Ahhh," I cry.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," says my neighbour, unlocking his truck.

"No. No." I say. "Beautiful day, isn't it."

"Yes, it will be," he says.

"Already is," I call over my shoulder.

Sound bites and photo stills from Sunday loop and snap above, below, around, beside, within my heart until I could teach a preposition lesson on this first day of the second semester, mapping the relationships between my heart and everything I heard and saw during the Treaty Walk gathering. I have posted the pictures, but haven't written anything yet; a day, now two, behind.

And how will I write about that day anyway? It was too powerful. Too poetic. Too perfect to wreck with second-hand words. But I will, and I know it, so I keep walking.

"Do you have a minute before things get started," says Kate.

"Sure," I say.

She motions to the low bench against the gymnasium wall, behind the slide-show screen. "I have something for you." We sit down. She holds up a parcel, wrapped in newspaper. "I want to give this to you."

"Oh, Kate. And what do I have for you?"

"But first I have to tell you the story. I was going to wrap this for you in Newspaper, so I reached into the recycling, and just grabbed a paper. I was chatting with Daisy, and taping as I went, then I turned the paper over and look!" She holds up the front of the parcel. "It's you, in the article about today in the Fort Times."

"No way," I say. I unwrap the gift and it is one of Kate's new pieces of art. "Oh, Kate. This is beautiful." Framed in white with a white matting is colour, design, life burgeoning beginnings in pencil watercolour. "I'll hang this for inspiration," I say.

"I call it 'Pregnancy' or 'Possibilities.' I couldn't decide, so I call it both." She turns the picture over and both titles are hand written on the back.

For the last two months Kate's been living an artistic awakening, creating art and blogging. She calls her blog: Moving Forward... Looking for the Joy. She tells me that I got her started.

When I introduce the panel later, I tell this newspaper story, mention her blog, and then explain that Kate is someone I call when I am overwhelmed by resistance. When I feel ineffective or foolish, Kate's words and art and life bring me wisdom and courage.