The Birth of Feeling: We are each other's home.

Pat Buchanan; Dryden, Ontario, 2010.

Grassby and Molly; Sioux Lookout, Ontario, 2010.

Emma does the wash; Dryden, Ontario, 2010.

Photo by Kim Masters; Sioux Lookout, Ontario, 2010.

I am home. I am no longer on the end of a phone attached to nothing or something stationary, far, far, far away from the arms I longed to be tucked into. Fox tucked into a fox. We are just here, at home, as if there was no time spent apart at all. I walked into our home last night with my canvas bag sliding down on that familiar bedroom floor. Our home. My home, his home, ours. It was tidy and smelled like it always does and just that tiny bit was so relieving to me. One hot shower and a quick breath when I saw that there were two (not one) fresh bars of my favorite soap in the holder. Roses and peppermint, mixed together, two paper wrappers on the floor, spent. Besides the soap score, there was pink lemonade and health juice in the fridge, with eggs too! I towelled dry and walked around airing out the damp that has tucked itself into my body in the last few weeks. Springsteen's Nebraska made me realize how stubborn I was and with that, quick as lightening I called out. He came running, I heard him on the stairs and I sat like a cat on the bed waiting expectantly and averted, and with a great crashing he ran right into me.

Welcome home, thank you. This is my face two weeks ago. Soft and tired, relaxed in front of a conifer tree line.Getting here was something else. Molly and I slept inside King of the Road (work truck) with Klinck and each time I rose out of sleep into the confusing delirium of empty stomach and heavy hearted tiredness, I felt sad looking at Klinck asleep with his head on the CB radio like the hardest pillow in the world. We waited and waited for those damn Greyhounds to come from opposite directions of Canada whooshing passed each other on the number 17 at 3 in the morning. They never came. Klinck and the King of the Road shook us out like loose change at near five in the morning and I stumbled around the pavement with eyes unseeing in a dress while talking to my dad on the phone. "Dad, the bus never came" as I walked weeping. Hopelessness built. "It's okay, you are okay", okay, okay, okay. He sent the best rescue crew he could think of: my mother and her sister. With much honking and hooting like only Reimer women are capable of, they roared up to my place at the Village Corner in BF Nowhere, Ontario (Vermillion Bay) after many hours of attempted (and quite unconvincing) hitch hiking (with three outfit changes to boot) on my part. Eventually I threw in the hitching towel and suntanned in a bed of daisies on a ridge off the highway. Vitamin D is the best vitamin. Finally with my dirty body and tired face in the back seat, these women in the front tossed so many news items and all their favorite anecdotes backwards, into my lap on the three hour ride home. My hands were full, my heart fullest. One item of utter joy and one of utter sadness. The sad item was so sad but also somewhere in the back forty of my mind quietly appropriate. She chose, she used the last of her might to take flight. Good bye Marj! You were so interesting, I loved serving you and your mother! Fuck! What a woman, what a writer. And then the first item: one of great joy!

A new baby, a new tiny creation made by two of my favorite people out of all of the people I know. Tiny overalls in quick stripes, soon to be upon the shoulders of the wee tickly version of yourselves. Congratulations is just a word tossed (with much meaning), but this is so much more than words. These are the days of our lives. My friends are having babies, graduating and moving to BERLIN, my sister is getting married, Mitch and I are blast moving. Everyone is very alive these days. These are great days of a great year. Year of the fire breathing Tiger, you devil. I am learning at the speed of light it seems. I want to shoot everything. It was incredibly frightening when I realized a few weeks ago in the bush that this is what I want to do. This is the thing, the path. I am finding my way I think.

The Attack in Black with Baby Eagle split spins round, Mitch draws in the yellowness of 3 p.m. thundershower bedroom lamp light (Winnipeg is shrouded in a pearly grey weather system right now, wrapped up tight like new wool and looking at it from my position on the bed, I can't help but think of all those beauties planting hard right now), and in this environment I write with my golden hoops the size of the Cincinnati ghetto wagging to the rhythm of the drums. Good album, and how. We are working within the same room and damn, it feels good. He is drawing the tender face of a woman called simply "The Ladybug Lady" ripped out of the obituary section with conviction. He draws with conviction and I watch with awe. The first lines of her face are shaping up beautifully. It is always something to be privilaged to watch a person draw. Such intimate and brave lines, those first strokes. No no no, how can I translate the shapes in my head onto paper? Mitch's flow onto paper in a steady stream. Good man. It is nice to be back in our nest (understatement of eternity).

The first photos of the bush have come. Many more will come tomorrow and then again in a couple of weeks. I am very pleased. Already these faces have pressed themselves into all the crannies that should house book knowledge and quick mathematics. Practicality you're OUT. Portraits you're IN. Enjoy. I am thinking of putting together a Tree Camp photo show before I move. Feedback is welcome, as there are hundreds to sort through on Flickrtown.