DOI: 10.3726/9781915734822.003.0014

13: In this soul, in this body

Tucked under a large crevice in a mountain, Hedley, British Columbia is a tiny town of approximately 250 people off the Crowsnest Highway which runs along the southern part of British Columbia, near the US border. A craggy, folded orogeny—the result of a geological, metamorphic process where tectonic plates collide followed by intense pressure and deformation of the Earth’s crust—looms above the town on the northwest side of the mountain. Opposite the orogeny, balanced on a cliff, are several small, dilapidated wooden structures, remnants of a once-bustling mining operation.

The Hitching Post is the only sit-down restaurant in the town. It looks like something out of a western movie. Glass paned windows make up the storefront, and inside the restaurant, antique farming and mining tools adorn the wood panelled walls: scythes, oxen yokes, garden hoes, shovels of all shapes and sizes, silage knives, pruners, iron post hammers, sickles, rakes, sheep shears, axes, handsaws, pitchforks, flails, chaff cutters, horseshoes.

There’s a live music show tonight at the Hitching Post. My tour companions, Sarah, Johanna, and I are performing. Tickets are $30, dinner included—roast chicken or pan-fried brook trout with steamed vegetables, mashed potatoes, and a green garden side salad. A pretty good deal for dinner and some decent live entertainment out in the middle of ranch country.

Sarah, Johanna, and I are singer-songwriters. We each play guitar and sing songs we compose ourselves. Our tour poster describes us as “a rollicking estrogen-injected show of powerhouse women in folk music from the Canadian West.” We are on a six-week tour that will take us all the way from Vancouver British Columbia, where we live, to Ottawa, Ontario. Realizing that being in a city centre would be easier if I wanted to earn a living as a musician, I moved back to Vancouver from the Kootenays three years ago. The Hitching Post in Hedley is the fourth stop on our tour.

After the show, Sarah, Johanna, and I fold up our mic stands, wrap our cables into neatly bound piles, and pack up our guitars. A round, jolly man with round, pink cheeks, a full white beard and moustache approaches me. He has on a red flannel shirt and suspenders, blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a grey felt, cowboy hat.

“Hello Kate, I’m Larry,” he says in a raspy voice, tipping his cowboy hat at me.

“Your tunes are great!” he beams. “Thanks for coming all the way to Hedley to sing for us.”

“Oh, and,” reaching into his shirt pocket, his eyes flashing, he chuckles, “I play harmonica, too!”

He pulls out a little silver harmonica, puts it to his lips, and drones out a cheery, little melody.

Larry has coal worker’s pneumoconiosis from working in the mines his whole life. He tells me his voice is hoarse because the coal dust damaged his larynx.

“Yeah, the black lung got me, but I can still play my harp! Hope to see you girls here again!” Larry waves and turns around, his harmonica purring as he hums out another tune and ambles out the door.

Well, what do you know? I think to myself as I continue packing up my gear. Songs like, “Co-op Girlz,” “Starving Artist,” “The Only Dyke at the Open Mic,” and “Everyone’s Fucked but Me” narrate my experiences as a lesbian and provide some social commentary on the world I live in. I am amazed that a guy like Larry likes my songs. I smile.

The next morning, I wake up at the Gold Mountain RV Park, a campground east of Hedley. Sarah, Johanna, and I rented a large but modest suite with a kitchenette above the campground office. Drab, partly closed curtains hang from brass curtain rods. Between the worn, light blue fabric, I can see dark green pine trees outside. The heat from the baseboard heater moves in waves as it floats up past the open window. A slice of morning sunlight refracts off the mirror over the sofa bed and spreads across the threadbare, tan-coloured carpet. Sarah and Johanna are curled up on the pull-out sofa bed under a lumpy dark blue and grey comforter. There is a small hole in the corner of the comforter, and cotton stuffing peeks out.

I slide on a pair of shorts and a sweater, some socks and hiking shoes, and a toque. Grabbing a small notebook and pen and stuffing them in my back pocket, I quietly close the door of the rental suite behind me, leaving my tour mates sleeping soundly inside.

Walking down the steps into the crisp morning air, the sweet, pungent smell of Ponderosa pine trees fills my nostrils. Striding up the driveway and across the Crowsnest Highway, I head to the edge of a field. I climb the rusty barbed-wire fence and start ascending the yellow grassy knoll ahead of me, beckoned by a bulky outcrop of rock about 300 metres up ahead.

My heart wakes up from its resting place in my chest, beating faster as my legs carry me up. Yellow, coarse grasses brush against my calves, the incline getting steeper as I climb the hill. My breath quickens as my lungs work harder to take in air. The scent of dry sagebrush and yarrow merges with the scent of the pines.

Arriving at the base of the rock outcrop, I grip the rough, lichened boulders, and scramble to the top of the rocks that jut out over the valley. Morning sunlight slowly spreads across the Crowsnest Highway snaking through the valley below. Mountains treed with pines, rise behind the RV park resting quietly on the other side of the highway. The blue-green ribbon of the Similkameen River weaves in and out of the forest along the valley bottom. Up here, the air is cleaner, my head, clearer and my heart, expansive.

Down at my feet, on a small grassy patch between the rocks lies the femur bone of a deer, clean and bleached white from the sun. I stoop over to inspect it further. The bone is hollow in the middle where the marrow had once been. Thousands of tiny holes punctuate the porous end by the joint, and fine cracks run along the length of the bone. As I reach down and pick it up, a breeze whispers in my ear. Standing up, the bone’s weightiness feels good in my hand as I curl my fingers around its solid form.

Without warning, the wind picks up and veils between the worlds blur. The rocky ground beneath me, the RV park, evergreen trees, and mountains across the highway begin to swirl around me, evaporating. Cracking open, I leave my body. Weightless, I am thrown into space as the universe spins around me.

Then, a golden, undulating grassy plain emerges into view, sprawling out before me as far as I can see. Bare feet hitting the ground, I begin to run. The sun streams down my back and my thick, long, chestnut brown hair flows out behind me as I sprint, strong, unencumbered, and wild. The thunderous clamour of pounding hooves fills my ears and clouds of dust billow upwards as a herd of massive animals surrounds me. They charge into my pulsing heart. I am traveling through their bones. Together, we stampede across the sweeping plain stretching out towards the horizon ahead of us.

Then, a jolt of recognition flashes through me: I have been here before. This very place. This very soul. Many lives ago. A different body.

Everything coalesces and comes into sharp focus. The rage, guilt, sorrow, regret, desire, joy, wonder. The traumatic incidents I experienced and witnessed throughout my life that I carry with me. Each person I encountered, came into relationship with, and left. The unhealthy choices I made because I wasn’t paying attention. The shame and confusion I felt about myself. The times I wondered how I would find a way home to myself. The question of how to land in a place, and take root, for good. The near-constant ache I feel for the need to express myself and write my version of my story and account for my feelings in song. The sound of my guitar reverberating against my torso and how it feels solid in my arms. The way my body and voice expand when I sing for people on a stage.

My soul has travelled through countless lives, forging for me a path through this world, leading me to this very moment through stories and song. I am at home. In this soul. In this body.

Aware of the firmness of the bone in my hand once again, I release it and it falls to the ground. I drop to my knees. Placing my palms on the ground in front of me, great sobs heave through my chest and out of my mouth. My heart racing, I wail into the morning air, awash in awe and gratitude. Crouching there for a minute, I draw in a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand under my ribs, trying to process what just happened.

Did I imagine this? I pick up the bone, to see if it will happen again. But, it doesn’t. Yet, as euphoria swirls inside me, I know I didn’t imagine this.

A few yards away, as if laughing at me, two crows chortle and chuckle back and forth from the branch of a lofty Ponderosa pine tree.

“Oh sure!” I yell out to them, wiping the tears from my cheeks, amused.

“Just because you get how all this works, doesn’t mean everyone else does, alright?”

Animals. Shaking my head, I chuckle. They think they know everything.

Sitting down on the rocky outcrop overlooking the winding highway down below, I pull out my notebook and pen. Language cannot always describe things of the spirit, it seems. But perhaps, sometimes, when paired with music, it comes close.