View across the North Okanagan from the Mt. Swanson Overlook

Now, when the first snow flies, the leavings of summer I find earlier in my field journal warms my skin and me reminds me of the linkage between the seasons.  Winter–summer: different positions on the same orbit.  It’s a thought hard to hold as the the wind blows hard against the house and big snowflakes fall.  I think so often of my field journal as the tool that allows me to explore the present.  Today I am reminded how it can also bring the past forward:  a week removed from normal time, surrounded by family, on the north end of Okanagan Lake.  This valley is terrain I shared with my sister and brother in our childhood and it feels right to be back here with my siblings and our extended families.  Over the course of a week we make time for beachside reading, bird walks along field margins, and a uphill climb through the wetter forest leading up to Mt. Rose and Mt. Swanson.  It’s a landscape I know better in memory than in current time, but the view from the Mt. Swanson has surprisingly pull–even now more than 35 years after I once called this valley home.

The fall of Short Creek, cascading down over steep rock is rivaled only by the incline of the wooden steps climbing its height.  What a surprise to find crossbills and pine siskins gleaning insects from the watery seeps lining the cliff face.  It’s not until I read my notes from our last climb that I remember how hot our visit here was with last summer’s record breaking heat.  In summer I wished for the chill of winter;  as winter descends, I long for hot August.  Is this what I do?  Wish away my ability to revel in the present?