To those who don't see the full picture, who only see activities and things like shopping and hanging out, any place can seem boring. To the young people of the Interior of British Columbia, their small towns are often described as boring and dull, with nothing to do as they dream of the city.
Sunny and I grew up in the Okanagan Valley and we had no need for any of that. We saw the valley in all its splendour from high on the mountains and low in the hills. Sunny saw the land from the lush of the grass and from the long shadows of the trees. Both of us lived and loved there and every single time I leave the Okanagan, I am tortured by my leaving. It's where my family is, where my cats are and where my spirit resides. When I am away from it, my soul cries and cries for the Okanagan, where all is quiet, all is peaceful. The Okanagan wasn't where I was born, though it was where Sunny was born, but I may as well have been born there too, because it's there, that the big bang of my imagination happened and where my spirit ran free. The Okanagan was and always will be our inspiration and though Sunny's no longer there except in spirit, I know that he loved that land too. It was his home and is. He never left it and he never will. To take Sunny from that land would be a crime and I know that when next I go there, my spirit will cry in earnest for his, for he will no longer physically be there.
The Okanagan Valley is like no other place on Earth. One can say that about just about any place though, for no two feet of dirt are alike, so I will say this; in no place in the world that I know of can you travel thirty kilometres and go from lush green forests edging lakes, to green farmlands roamed by beautiful horses to a semi desert where the hills flare up with yellow balsam root flowers in the summer and where if you're not careful, you'll step on a prickly pear cactis. Everything is surrounded by soft old mountains and cliffs kissed orange by the sunrise and in the valley bottom there is a troop of lakes, one after the other, one by one. There's Okanagan, grey and long busy, home to the mighty Ogopogo who once ate people crossing the lake in legends. There's Kalamalka, a lake National Geographic rated as being one of the world's most beautiful lakes in the world and it deserves that title, for Kalamalka's colouring is always forever changing, for in its waters are the properties of a crystal prism. There's also Swan Lake and Wood Lake and Gardam Lake and Skaha and Osoyoos. All of them are beautiful.
The lake that me and Sunny grew by and where Sunny tried so hard to hunt the mallard ducks at was Okanagan Lake. I lived in terror of those waters as a child, not particularly because of Ogopogo (though he scared me too and still does) but because I just didn't like water and I thought that octopi lived there and that there were crabs to pinch my feet. (I will never swim in the ocean!) My mother told me that when I was a baby, every time they tried to put me in the water, I would scream bloody murder, so the general consensus has become that in some past life, I drowned, because I still don't like water. If I'm in a canoe, I have to paddle close to shore where the water isn't so deep and I will not put my feet anywhere near reeds or water grass. I think Sunny was the same, though he was a cat, so like me, he possessed a sensible distrust of water. One time, when he was young we tried to take him out and he leaped out of the canoe before we had cleared very far past the shore, swimming back as fast as he could. We never made him do that again; some cats may like water, but not mine.
It's hard to think about the Lake Lot now. So much of my memories there in that sacred place were spent with him, my Sunnels, now passed. It's been two days since he died now. Two days. Over fifty four hours since he passed away. I can't stand thinking of that. Thinking of the lake, I remember him striding through the green grass, his orange and white fur bright against the flora, beautiful eyes and knicked ears keen. Whenever we were cooking, whenever we had a fire the cats would hang out with us, never getting too close, but sitting or prowling nearby, a part of the moment.
As dusk drew, we would hear humming birds and then we would see the daily cloud of swallows, reeling and diving like fighter jets after the bugs. There's less of those now than when I was a kid. There may be less humming birds too and for both species, that's a great tragedy. Darkness would fall and out from the black forest mountain behind our house would come the bats, flicking flashes of coal in the shadowy light, chasing the insects that the swallows had chased while at the fire we drew letters in the air with glowing poker stick points, making smoke trails. Out of the night there would be a flash of white and that would be Mamma Kitty, leaping at the bats. She was seldom successful, but that's not to say that she never was. Mamma Kitty was a champion of mousers and bats were in particular probably of some annoyance to her, flickering about above her head, challenging prey that dared her, mocked her. Mamma Kitty got her revenge though. Like a wild African Serval she would spring up in a flash of her markings, claws clapping together, tail waving wide and any bat who hadn't heard her jump, if it caught between her fatal paws, it was doomed. Mamma Kitty was a spectacular mousing cat.
Sunny's prey, were the ducks. Sunny always dreamed of catching a duck. From his observations of how they came close for bread when we were feeding them (note; bread actually isn't very good for ducks, but these ducks were also feeding on proper duck things at the same time, unlike ducks at your typical city park) the ducks seemed pretty stupid. The only problem was, was that they were in water and he wanted them to be on land. Ducks do go on land though, waddling up to nibble at the grass, so I think Sunny was pretty hopeful that one day he'd catch one unawares. Most of the time though the ducks would see him and they didn't seem too impressed by his chirping bird call, gliding infuriatingly away through the placid water as he stalked across the rock dock. As they left they would straighten and I do think he would breath a sigh then, frustrated by their bloody wariness as they paddled off, quaking about him, oft times a mama duck telling her flotilla of babies to be careful about him.
Smokey and Mamma Kitty were never really tempted by the ducks like Sunny was. Smokey only wanted to catch shrews or robins (my mom cursed her to stop killing all the robins though they seemed in plentiful enough supply) and Mamma Kitty wanted bats - or humming birds - or other birds, or really, anything. The uber hunter wanted to eat something tastier than kibble and to give us something to show her endearing regard. She ate most of her kills, as did Smokey, dragging them into the yard then munching them on the lawn, but sometimes our huntresses didn't eat their prey, leaving them in front of our doors to impress us. I think the gifts were usually shrews. Maybe shrews taste good?
What tasted good to me, were hot dogs, crisped until black so that they have some flavour. To those who don't know, veggie wieners aren't high in the taste department. They're pretty boring, but they taste pretty good if they're charred a bit, at least in my opinion. Something about cooking them in fire makes them taste a thousand times better, especially served on a piece of local bread drizzled with ketchup, relish, mustard and mayo if we were lucky. That, combined with my mom's potato salad and iced tea, followed up by copious sweet marshmallows (also better over a fire) makes for one of the best weinie roasts ever. Marshmallows are also fun because occasionally they become torches, whether you're trying to flame them or not. They're very combustable. (Also, if you put them in the microwave they grow to like five times their size. I know because me and my brothers conducted several experiments on this when our parents were out. We also once made something we called 'astronaut food' which was a blended much of hot dog, bread, mustard, ketchup and relish. Yep. It was nasty looking. I didn't try it.)
Like the cats, we ran barefoot at the lake lot, dashing through cool grass in not much besides our swim suits, leaping through the rain, dancing cautiously around the dry spot in the lawn where the spiny horse chestnuts fell. I don't believe the cats ever stepped there either. Cats are too smart. We climbed the trees; my brothers built forts. We went on the roof of our cabin and looked out over our territory. We chased the cats in games of Endangered Species where they played cheetahs that we as biologists were trying to catch with tranquilizer darts (water guns) and made mazes out of two-by-four blocks of driftwood, once putting Smokey in one of those. The mazes were epic. It's too bad that there's no pictures of those.
In the garden Mamma Kitty liked to lie under the tomatoes on the hot black Earth and soak up the sun while Sunny preferred the cherry tree, where he could lay in the shade in cool peace. I saw him pant a few times. My dad made the cats a big automatic feeder thing out of a big metal stove pipe and the bottom of a plastic vegetable oil bucket, which we kept full of kibble for them and they drank water from the lake shore, crouching at its grassy edge. In the day, you could always hear the boats and seadoos going NEA-NEA-NEA-nea-nea... At night all there was was quiet and our childish conversations and the occasional terrifying bark of our mother telling us to go to sleep as the cats all slept with us in the trailer.
The Okanagan is home to me and my cats. It's where I first dreamed of giggoos and roleplayed falcolfs playing in the lake mud and where I told many of my first stories. Rimer was born there as Sunny was and Smokey and Mamma Kitty were too and it will always remain a source of great inspiration to me, from the Lake Lot where my family all found their peace and where me and my brothers learned the wildness that all kids should learn, to the dusty hiking trails that bake under the sun where as a kid I followed and where now I so often lead. Hiking drives my blood up like nothing else and the Okanagan does too, because it is home and it is familiar. I love the Okanagan like a family member and this year, I was grateful when it didn't torch. This year, my homeland got a break from the recent string of yearly firestorms that have plagued it. Maybe the sunspots and flares which chase away the needed rain have calmed down for a while; I would welcome that. I think we all would welcome that, here in the Okanagan.
For me, I will remember running in the rain unjacketed and hiding under my parent's sofa bed with Sunny and Smokey and Mamma Kitty in the thunderstorms. I will remember Sunny cutely chatter chirping at the ducks and Mamma Kitty hunting, bringing back mice. I will remember the bottle caps stuck in the dirt road and riding my bike the five kilometres out to the general store for candy under a hot summer sun and I will remember Smokey, playing with her prey, flipping them into the air.
I love my home. It won't be the same without Sunny there, but it will still be home and when I go there, maybe, maybe he will come to me and if only just in dreams, we'll be together again.
Rest in peace buddy.
Photography by Rosanna P. Brost and Bryan B. Brost.
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