Chance and Mischance

Yesterday's perambulation in the ravine gifted us with our first sighting of those elusive Jack-in-the-pulpits. We know where to look from long experience. The previous day there was nothing at all to indicate they were prepared to launch themselves. Yet, there they were a day later, two of them together, one more isolated, but most definitely they. They're our favourite spring flower; of course we have other favourites as well, like Ladies Slipper and Columbine, neither of which are to be found in our ravine.

We were just starting our morning walk, just beginning to descend into the ravine, when we saw, approaching us, two grievously obese women struggling uphill, toward us. As we descended, they ascended, neither they nor we in much of a hurry. Chance encounters with strangers always hold out promise of a brief exchange and so it proved to be with these two women. What, we were thinking to ourselves, were two such lipid-laden souls doing wandering in the ravine?

The conversation that ensued illustrated amply the reason for their presence. Exactly the same as ours; a full appreciation for this jewel of nature at our very doorsteps. They exhibited the very same excitement at where they discovered themselves to be as do we. They warned us that just ahead, on the trail, there was a 'garden' snake. Sunning itself as snakes are wont to do in spring. As we spoke with some good degree of animation, a group of teen-age boys passed by us on bicycles on their way into the ravine.

Oh dear, said one of the women, wincing: the snake. Yes, said I, good reason to frighten them if they place themselves in such vulnerable positions, to encourage them to leave for a safer resting spot. We stood together and talked, about our love of nature, our recognition of what lay before us, and our delight at seeing everything appear in its season. Already, immature false Solomon's seal was present, and here, I beckoned to them, bending toward a group of lilies-of-the-valley, are the tiny complex flowerheads already showing themselves.

When we parted and continued our various ways, having informed them what street it was they were approaching to orient themselves, we turned right at the bottom of the ravine and watched as the boys who had passed us launched themselves from the rope liana they or some other teens had long ago thrown over the trunk of a tree overhanging the creek. They took turns, whooping with joy and swinging themselves on the rope from one bank of the creek to the opposite side.

If they missed, they would end up in the middle of the creek, deep in the muck of the clay bottom. The women had mentioned to us they'd seen minnows in the creek, and I asked if they mightn't have seen water striders, but they were adamant. We searched, but saw nothing resembling their description, and forged on, happy with the warmth of the day, the brightness of the sun, the dry trail, and the host of early spring flowers greeting us at every turn.

Wild strawberries were in bloom, their perfect white blossoms a lovely foil for the carpets of violets, shining back the sun in colours of yellow, mauve, and a rarer luscious purple. There were the yellow spotted trumpet flowers of the trout lilies, and smaller trumpets of the straw lilies; the shy carmine of trilliums nodding their heads in the slightest of breezes. Squirrels ran amok, and we even saw the occasional chipmunk rustling about in last year's detritus.

Riley was the first to notice someone approaching us as we crossed another of the bridges, not barking as he does when a strange dog approaches and we soon realized why that was. A long-time walking acquaintance followed by two King Charles spaniels soon met us face to face giving us yet another reason to halt our expedition and greet one another with delight in the weather and the unfolding of spring. One of her dogs had gone up to his elbows in muck and she was a trifle disgruntled but wouldn't dream of denying him that exquisite pleasure.

Finally, to accommodate our mutual urge to talk companionably, she changed direction and we all proceeded in the same direction, her two dogs and ours stopping occasionally to express their appreciation of the season by nibbling tender new grasses. It was odd to see her alone, absent her ironically grumpy husband, yet handily filling in his absence by frequent and spontaneous imitations of his cynical responses to conversations and situations.

One of their daughters, resident in Vancouver and employed by an international bank headquartered in China, was responsible for training call-centre personnel from India. A contingent of personnel from the Bengal region was in Vancouver, and she was herself destined to travel back to India with them as part of the training. She had telephoned her mother to explain that several of the Indian visitors had gone on to Montreal to the offices there, and had expressed an interest in going further, to Ottawa.

And might her parents mind taking it upon themselves to pick up her friends, show them the town, return them to Montreal from whence they'd fly back to Vancouver? Dear, said her cockney-voiced mother, tell them to hop on a bus, and we'll meet them at the station. Damn! was her husband's response about having to baby-sit foreigners and chauffeur them around. She informed us through her mincing mimicry of his moods exactly the levels of her tolerance for his inbred pessimism.

Her sunny optimism and willingness to give things a chance to unfold, winning him grudgingly, but invariably over to her initiatives. The stuff of which potentially oppositional, but conclusively successful partnerships are comprised of. Her mocking renditions of his complaints and fears bely the seriousness of his perceptions, but do not hide her love of her man. Her derisory reflection of his protests against their daughter's wheedling that they take on the mantle of hosts cracked us up.

Her enthusiastic endorsement after their successfully and mutually enjoyable hosting and sightseeing painted both in the sweet light of accommodation, toward one another, toward strangers - the friends we have not yet met. They were, she enthused, the two most polite, appreciative and quietly intelligent people they'd ever met, a young man and a young woman, business colleagues who impressed on them their intent to treat their daughter in India, as well as they had treated of them.

Before we departed on a few errands, the 81-year-old fit and bright woman who has been my area captain for the Canadian Cancer Society door-to-door canvass dropped by to pick up my completed canvass kit. Her volunteer convassers were fewer this year, as several moved to other communities and no one seemed willing to volunteer to pick up the slack. As usual, we had assembled a collection of soft-back detective novels for Kaye to take back with her, that we had finished with and her son-in-law would now read.

When they're finished with the books, four shopping bags full, they would distribute them in their turn, to a book sale at their church; for pick-up-and-away reading material to be placed in the health-care institute where her daughter works as a geriatric psychiatric counselling nurse. When Kaye left, so did we, on our shopping expedition, and when we returned, there was a colourful gift bag hanging on the handle of our front door, from her daughter. In it was a collection of hand-made greeting cards, each one faced with an original, coloured photograph of surpassing beauty and professionalism.

Later in the afternoon I decided I'd put off planting the two new clematis vines, the purple and the white delphiniums, the sundrops, the coreopsis we'd bought at the garden shop after our walk. Instead, another, competing priority intervened and I set up my little barbershop to trim Button's and Riley's hair. Spreading out the fabric I always use for that occasion under our large pine in the front garden we were well shaded as I proceeded to snip spare hair from the two. Not their most favourite situation by a long mile.

One neighbour after another dropped by having picked up their younger children at the school bus drop-off, for a little chat about this and that. Ten-year-old Michaela from three doors down dropped by to sit alongside us and stroke Riley while Button was being unmercifully shorn. She had scraped her forehead while jumping on Sara's trampoline, she told me. But that wouldn't stop her from continuing to use the trampoline; she'd just be more careful, she smiled.

Her six-year-old sister Cassie also had informed me a day earlier she too would be more careful, having fallen off her bicycle the day before, twice. She was wearing her helmet, but the helmet didn't protect her knee, nor did it protect her face as she fell face-first on the pavement. The result of which was an upper lip cut and swollen three times its normal size, and a loose, permanent tooth. Cassie had rung our doorbell, asked to be invited in so she could tell us all about her misadventure. A bagful of little chocolates cheered her up immensely.

Thus doth our world spin.