Sunday, August 13, 2017

This afternoon I went to the Coop to buy goat cheese.  They have tiny packages of it for five bucks but it's worth it to have on homemade pizza.

I didn't wear a sweater, as it is 21 degrees today, in an uncharacteristic hot spell.  Accompanied by the smoke from the NWT forest fires and no wind.  The Sir Wilfrid Laurier - a giant coast guard icebreaker - has dropped anchor in the bay, and it hums all night so last night I slept at the cabin.  The night before I watched tv in the middle of the night and cursed Sir Wilfrid for his humming.

These things are related.  Really.

The reason for my insomnia seems to be the sudden change in my hormonal balance - long story short I am no longer subject to the whims of nature in that way and it seems that the last couple of years of let's-have-a-period-every-twenty-days was incredibly draining.  So now after three months without my visitor, I'm feeling very strong and apparently I don't need a lot of sleep.

So I went to the Coop in a t-shirt and my hiking pants.  Something I don't normally do, as when I was 13 I started the habit of covering up my femaleness when out in public.  But something about this phase of things feels very much like the opposite of 13, back to 10 or 11, where my body is my own and doesn't do things I don't want it to.

There is a girl in town here who reminds me of me.  At about 15, she is shy, I think, but she's out there working all over town, as I did - but when you look at her, her gaze slides away.

As I was walking out of the Coop with my tiny package of goat (and some chocolate, naturally), she was walking in.  She didn't look at me.  She doesn't actually know me, but seeing that she was wearing a sweater and her usual sideways look, I know her.  And I wanted to stop her and say, "It will get better.  You will get out of here, if you keep working.  And later on it'll all be worth it".   I'm not going to tell her not to wear a sweater, though.  I wouldn't have listened if anyone told me that at fifteen...