Blog of the Little Bonsai

Personal Blog of Steve Baumber

First Blog of the New Year!

Christmas was spent at Dad's place in Calgary, with only brief sojourns out to Bragg Creek to gather up odds and ends from the house, and to engage in a fiery Christmas Eve debate with Tony and Jason. Please refer to this site for my final word on the subject.

I wondered how the sale of the house in Bragg Creek and my "last visit" would affect me. How bittersweet would that moment be? I was underwhelmed by my gut. Here was a place in which I'd spent a good 25 years growing up and another 9 visiting, and yet it felt okay to say good bye to it.

As I packed up my drum kit, amps, pictures, and various odds and ends, and wandered from room to room, echoes and ghosts trailed along with me, colouring in the memories and filling in the empty spaces now cleared of the remnants of those who used to live there.

At Ian's wedding last summer, I realized that as deep as my roots ran into that place and that community, as much as it would always be "home", "home" has become what I carry with me, and what I trust to be carried in the hands of others.

Bragg Creek was a backdrop. It's the bond with the people I grew up with that has meaning. As beautiful as the geography of Bragg Creek is, it was my friends and our neighbours, not the location, that held meaning for me when I would "go home". Maybe it's that I now recognize what I want to pursue in my life is not possible from that house, nor are my friends there, or even my family anymore.

Ultimately, I've grown to see the house as a false promise. Full of memories, but not offering the future, or at least a "Hallmark future" of reunions and remembrance. I think that my family is meant to settle in other places for the next chapters in our lives. Obviously we kids have moved on, and it's really Mum and Dad that are looking for a retirement, for a chance to reflect on a life lived, and life given. But perhaps it's not yet time for any of us to fade into the mists of reverie, but to once again step into newness. There's still work to be done on ourselves and on our relationships with each other. As I learned in Oregon this past summer, life, to live, is work. You have to keep paddling.

From Bragg Creek to Magna Bay for New Year’s Eve with Darren, Brad, Jessie, and the gang. A quick dip in frigid waters of the Shuswap introduced me to the New Year. A quick naked run through snow back to the house introduced me to two young ladies warming themselves by the wood stove in the basement. At least they offered me a towel.

The Masters has begun, with two courses this term in Business Ethics and the Ethics of being a Professional Forester. Are they compatible? A province – nay, a Nation – holds it’s breath…

posted by Steve @ 9:04 AM

1.26.2005