Writing | K Stotz
From the archive:
Ipperwash Beach. Lake Huron. In the sand dunes. The finely powdered beige sand. There are paths through these dunes and just over the bluff is the Great Lake. I follow one path that I think will lead me to the road. Others venture up the valley wall. Sharp grass growing in tufts everywhere up and down the dune and moss and now people approach. So I turn back for the beach and listen to what I think might be the sound of cicadas and approaching voices. And I watch a dragonfly and I think—what do I think of? I think of dragonflies back in Nova Scotia and I hear the hum of a Seadoo on Lake Huron. Closer to me, up this poplar tree I can hear another cicada. I think it’s quite beautiful the way sand lightly dusts the moss here. I find it quite beautiful the way sand almost feels wet. So fine is it. Though that’s not quite it. It’s not quite wet feeling but it’s heavy, heavier than sand of a coarser grind. I wonder if this is the same grass which grows on the beaches back in Nova Scotia and if so how’d it traverse the distance? I walk to the top of a dune. The grass becomes thicker. The sound of the waves louder. The wind off the Great Lake colder. And my vision more populated. It shares the lake with the dunes now. I’m halfway between. And I want to go back down to the lake but I also don’t want to leave the dunes or you. I wish to never stop this. To keep going for hours and hours and days and then maybe to touch down on earth amongst other people. And I want to go into the water and play but I also want to stay in the sand and talk and talk and talk. And pretend that the arches traced in the sand by the wind are archaic. And pretend that the lines traced in the sand by the bent-over tips of the sharp grass are a language I’ve never seen before. So I pause briefly to take a picture of the tracings and the ridges which look to me like the dunes etched into a desert as seen from a kilometer overhead. But of course smaller and in this beige sand where there’s also grass and the tracings the tips of the blades of grass leave in that sand and bugs which here at the edge of the beach amongst the dune-grass are sheltered from the wind. And I can hear as I speak the crash of surf and watch the seagulls go back and forth. And feel I feel I want to keep feeling. I need to keep feeling and wonder is this purple flower a thistle or does it just have that clown’s wig-like flower (light purple) that a thistle has. Yes it has a similar flower to the thistle. Bees are flying from blossom to blossom. But there aren’t any thorns on the stem. I wish to stand in the sand longer. I don’t want to stop. It’s been so long since I felt you. So long since we were close.