this sunday i'm heading off to woody point to start a month long gros morne national park craft residency. an opportunity to spend lots of time on my own work and also make connections with craftspeople in the area - with an artist talk, mentoring, a 2-day work shop and a visit to a local school. if I have internet access i'll be keeping this blog going. if not, know that i'm making and walking and recording and will come home with tonnes of inspiration to share.

tipples pond in

autumn

 

i've been walking in around town. choosing routes that i wouldn't normally take. pretending i'm in a new place with new eyes. lovely peeling paint on some of the old buildings on brook st.

 

corner brook exists because of the pulp and paper mill. the town is built around it. at  8:00 and 4:00 every day you hear the mill whistle and it grounds you in time. from 3 bear mountain (behind my house) you can look down on the mill and then out the bay. the steam funnels then tumbles and mixes with the clouds.

                         
                                                         counting my blessings

often this time of year, preparing for Christmas craft shows, i'm too busy to get to the cabin. we made a decision this autumn to just do it. so, every weekend for a month we've gone down saturday and back up sunday. we're learning how to enjoy the long dark evenings with the fire and lamplight. to go to bed early and get up early.










 to cook on the woodstove as much as possible.












 to watch the hills come into colour and begin to fade.

i've lived in corner brook, newfoundland for almost 30 years (and 10 years before that just outside of corner brook).  it's a small town of about 18,000 (it was much bigger when i first moved here). it's slow and pretty sleepy. the biggest attraction here are the walking trails - and they are magnificent. but the town itself is kind of boring. i figure i know corner brook pretty well. one of my goals with all this walking is to find things i hadn't seen before and to look at what i do know differently.

i'm not the only one benefitting from these long daily walks. abigail is 11 years old. as excited as she always was when she hears the word "walk".  romps and scurries and explores. but i'm almost pulling her up the last hill to our house at the end of the walk. and she has long deep sleeps once she's home.

such a good visit with the doctor yesterday. he's confident that my wonky thyroid is connected to my wonky osteoporosis. the latest blood tests (after being on thyroid meds for 3 months) show much more sensible numbers. so, i'm hopeful I can be fixed. and... he gave the ok to resume yoga. gentle gentle. so I've been online and worked out a routine using a chair. I have to keep reminding myself that this is all. hopefully. temporary.  

the corner brook stream trail. with all the wind and rain these past few days, the leaves are falling hard now...

well, yesterday's walk involved back and forth 4 times to the hospital. so I guess that counts. I've always been super healthy so all of this is new to me. taking medication. restricting my activity. yesterday I was injected with a nuclear substance and 2 hours later under a bone scanning machine (to see if I have any fractures that I don't know about). on days like yesterday I feel the need to detach myself from my body and just observe...

                                                         tipples pond

one of the cabins at dark cove is falling in. layers of old linoleum being exposed to the weather.

        broken chairs along the old highway.

                          
                                                      wild and windy cook's lookout.

 

on a walk up to three bear mountain yesterday. in the rain. watched them load and dump and crush hospital beds from the old veteran's hospital. so poignant. i've known men and women who spent their last days there...

                                       my new walking shoes. I want to wear these down...

last week i was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis in my spine. when I asked my doctor about exercise he said "at this point, all you can do is walk." i have started bone building medication (a very hard decision for me). yesterday i bought some really good hiking boots with ankle support. i will walk at least an hour a day. with my camera and sketchpad and try to turn this into something positive. the photos i'm taking now are about how I see my spine. fragile and tangled.