William McFarlane Notman - Great cedar tree, Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC, 1897
Up North
“Up North is a certain way the wind feels on your face and the way an old wool shirt feels on your back. It’s the peace that comes over you when you sit down to read one of your old trip journals, or the anticipation that bubbles inside when you start sorting through your tackle box in the early spring.
Up north is the smell of the Duluth pack hanging in your basement and the sound of pots clinking across the lake. It’s a raindrop clinging to a pine needle and the dancing light of a campfire on the faces of friends.
Up north is a lone set of cross-country ski tracks across a wilderness lake and wood smoke rising from a cabin chimney. It’s bunchberries in June, blueberries in July and wild rice in September.
Each of us has an up north. It’s a time and place far from the here and now. It’s a map on the wall, a dream in the making, a tugging at one’s soul. For those who feel the tug, who make the dream happen, who put the map in the packsack and go, the world is never quite the same again.
We have been Up North. And part of us always will be.”
-Sam Cook as quoted from his book “Up North.”
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
A song thing I recorded very late last night. It’s not done, but could be. Just not decided yet.
Moment of Death
Been talking a lot about death and somehow it doesn’t feel morbid, it seems kind of beautiful. Intense, jarring, and tear jerking, but not ugly or to be ignored.
Many films diminish us. They cheapen us, masturbate our senses, hammer us with shabby thrills, diminish the value of life. Some few films evoke the wonderment of life’s experience, and those I consider a form of prayer. Not prayer “to” anyone or anything, but prayer “about” everyone and everything. I believe prayer that makes requests is pointless. What will be, will be. But I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.
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| — | Roger Ebert |
