3 November 2025 – Either/or choices, within a block of each other.
A battered Mother Jones slogan, supported by battered crows, urges us…
to raise hell.
A tidy Lutheran Church signboard urges us…
to practice gratitude.
What to do, what to do?
Easy.
Life is both/and.
Do both.
Posted by icelandpenny on 3 November 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/11/03/choices/
26 October 2025 – A double pun, both parts inspired by what I see, this drizzle-rich day, at the VanDusen Botanical Garden.
One part, the Michael Dennis cedar sculptures visible from the forecourt, which I always enjoy…
but whose title I always forget. I have to read it anew each visit: Confidence, says the label, Western red cedar, 2012.
Truth to tell, I don’t quite understand this title.
Dennis’ cedar sculpture for Guelph Park was called Reclining Figure, a name that made obvious sense — though also a name that disappeared from popular memory when the piece was recast in bronze, nicknamed The Dude, and in turn caused the park itself to become known as Dude Chilling Park. (But that is another story, and one I’ve already told you.)
To me, this Van Dusen duo look more contemplative than confident. Pffft, who cares? Confidence is an admirable characteristic, so let’s run with it. Confidence in my outerwear to be as waterproof as it claims, for example… confidence in nature’s transitions each season… confidence in the bones and installations of this Garden to be of interest, whatever the season, whatever the weather.
Confidence immediately justified. This is what greets me, as I start northward along the west side of Livingstone Lake.
Contrasts in the slopes to my left, fall textures and colours at play against the deep green of the coniferous background.
Sculptural details, in seed pods I can’t identify…
and in a curious fall fruit that I can, namely the Common Medlar (Mespilus germanica).
Then, just before I reach the footbridge that divides Livingstone Lake from Heron Lake, I see this enormous leaf on the ground before me.
Which I can also identify, and which sets me looking for more.
This is a Gunnera leaf — Gunnera manicata, aka Giant Chilean Rhubarb, and worthy of the adjective. One leaf can be a couple of metres wide, clumps run 3-plus metres high and 3-4 metres across. There are great clusters of this plant around the inter-zone of these two lakes.
The plant towers over visitors all summer long.
In fall, it is cut back…
and its leaves inverted, to protect plant crowns from winter temperatures.
I’m properly awed by Gunnera in summer, I giggle at it in winter.
Giant pixie caps!
I’m across the foot bridge now, looking north into Heron Lake, taking in the whole sweep of autumn complexity, from desiccated russet stalks at my feet to flaming trees in the distance. So rich.
Also, in places, so denuded.
I follow the sweep of this dug-over flower bed, past that uprooted tree, and come to a signpost that promises me the most extraordinary amount of choice: both seasonal and geographic.
Here’s where the other part of my punning post title kicks in. I am offered a stroll, and I take it. Specifically, at this point, an autumn stroll in Eastern North America.
Yes. It is very all-of-that.
A side trail loops me past the Cypress Pond, and brings me out once again to the south-east curve of Livingstone Lake.
Where I rejoin the Confidence couple.
I too have confidence — confidence they watch over their lake, just as The Dude watches over his park.
I take my leave.
Posted by icelandpenny on 26 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/26/strolling-with-confidence/
23 October 2025 – I had a much longer title in mind. To wit: “Above/Below/In Front/Behind/Then/Now/Here/There… and All the In-betweens.” Aren’t you glad I restrained myself?
That verbal onslaught is prompted by yet another walk along the north shore of False Creek, from foot of Davie east to Main. More specifically, prompted by this:
I only now, after all these years, bother to learn that this artsy structure has a name. It is one of the two shelters + glass panels that comprise Lookout (Dikeakos + Best, 1999), which traces the natural & industrial history of the area and is an early contribution to the public art we enjoy on both sides of the water.
You can spread the image, read the keywords panel by panel — or just read this paragraph! L to R: “box cars, flat cars, tank cars” / “dining cars, sleeping cars” / “… the yard master makes a train…” / [then a panel written to be read from the other side] / “all built and all rebuilt” / “gone and a thousand things leave, not a trace” / “lumber co yards, islets of gravel.”
I climb up to the street, take a closer look at the inscribed and silhouette steel uprights, also part of the story.
Natural + industrial history indeed, from “mudflats” upper left to “red caboose” lower right.
Then I check the panel meant to be read from this, the street, side:
This one you can read for yourselves. And, given all these prompts, you can also take a stab at imagining “as if it were” all still present as it used to be.
What you will have trouble reading, even if you spread the image, is the black-lettered graffito neatly inked in just below “across the waters.” It says: “build a washroom.”
I think this is perfect. An interjection of a “now” reality in a tribute to “then.”
It is also a further prompt to do what I do every time I pass this installation, with its invitation to remember the past, superimpose it on the present, build it into my understanding of how much more is still Here-And-Now than is Right-Now visible. Every time, my mind flips back, vaguely but insistently, to Italo Calvino’s 1972 book, Invisible Cities. As one astute reviewer observed, the novel is “a travelogue to places that do not exist.” It also invites us to think more richly about how we define “exist.” (Side nod to the wise fox, who taught The Little Prince, “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”)
I am primed, in other words, to read above, below and ‘way inside the everyday sights that greet me as I walk.
Jerry Pethick’s Time Top sculpture, for example, that invites us to imagine a time top spinning across the galaxy…
to crash-land on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, right here…
or the blue bands of A False Creek (Rhonda Weppler, Trevor Mahovsky), that invite us to imagine what all this will look like if climate change indeed causes ocean levels to rise 4-6 metres…
and, right next to it, another interjection of a “now” reality, again in the form of a polite and neatly lettered graffito. This one, beneath the No Dogs Allowed notice there on the right, yanks our attention back to the present. “Clean The Water,” it snaps.
I stop my fancy metaphysics for a moment, offer myself a simple contrast between sky-high…
and shoreline…
then, sideways, a panorama of nature, reminding us that it invented fall colours long before built structures began to emulate them…
followed by, at my feet, the tight focus of a single fallen leaf…
reminding us that diversity, whether in or out of political favour, is the building-block reality of life.
However pure green this leaf long appeared to be, all these other colours were woven into it right from the start and are equally part of it. As are (side nod to Thich Nhat Hanh and the concept of interbeing) sunlight, water and soil, plus all the nutrients of those three elements as well, all of which made the existence of this leaf possible.
Quite literally, the universe in a single leaf.
Enough. I think I’m done. But, no.
There is one more juxtaposition. One more interweaving. One more dance to vibrate my own little world, as I walk on by.
Upper right: nature’s wasp nest. Lower left: street-guy’s sneakers. Both at home in the tree. A tree shedding its leaves, itself at home with the cycles of the universe.
I laugh, shed my pomposity, and take myself home.
Posted by icelandpenny on 23 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/23/and-all-the-in-betweens/
18 October 2025 – A wonderful bit of British slang: the verb “to grizzle.” It describes the act of complaining or whining, at a low decibel level, but continuing on and on and forever-bloody-on. Which makes it such a lovely companion, in more than rhyme scheme, for the verb “to drizzle.” It describes the act of rain that falls at a low intensity level, but also continues on and on and forever-bloody-on.
This afternoon, for example.
I am equipped for the latter, and reject the former. — like most Vancouverites, I hasten to add. We know where we live.
Scotia Street seems an appropriate start for a drizzle-walk.
It overlaps with the final stretch of Brewery Creek, which, in the days when it had not yet been sewered, ran into the east end of False Creek, which had not yet been filled in.
Grey sky & low visibility along Scotia, but colours pop, both autumnal foliage and seasonal umbrellas.
Ditto the red truck marking the Red Truck Beer Company, down there where Scotia ends (or starts) at East 1st Avenue. Beyond the brewery yard, I can see dim outlines of the lowest level of the mountains to the north, but nothing higher up, only the drizzling sky.
The mountain peaks may be hiding, but not us Vancouverites. As I turn onto 1st Avenue, a stream of people erupts from the Crossfit BC doorway opposite, and starts pelting on down the street ahead of me.
By the time I’ve walked another block, I start meeting them on their return trip. Apparently this is just the warm-up for an indoor class.
I veer through False Creek Flats, filled in originally to provide land for railway-oriented industry and warehouses. The area is morphing into a new post-industrial life centred around digital media, clean technologies, medical research & the like, but the transformation is not complete. Sodden skies suit the still-gritty streets that lie beneath them.
Farther west, I twine my way first around the pollinator meadows lining the Ontario Street bioswale, where logs and their tiny fungi gleam brown and gold…
and then among the condos just off Quebec Street, where the gleam is metallic but equally appropriate. When could suit a fountain sculpture (Eyes On The Street, Marie Khouri & Charlotte Well) better, than a drizzling sky?
By the time I am walking along West 2nd Avenue…
I am prepared to concede that the sky is no longer drizzling. It is raining. Same visual impact — just look how that orange traffic light spills on down the street, bouncing from one puddle to the next — but damn, there’s nothing “low-level” about this.
(A passing woman & I grin at each other in mutual approval: we are each snug in waterproof clothing, and therefore spurn umbrellas.)
In Olympic Village Plaza, one of Myfanwy MacLeod’s The Birds sculptures tilts his stainless steel head to the elements…
Canada Geese bend their feathered heads to rich pickings in the grass (the mountains have now totally disappeared)…
and the cast-iron cycle of eggs/tadpoles/frogs on the storm sewer cover (Musqueam artists Susan Point and daughter Kelly Connell)…
is completely and perfectly at home in the dancing rain.
Meanwhile, the human beings at the street corner…
look distinctly less comfortable.
I am quite sufficiently comfortable, thank you, since only my outer layer is wet.
But, even so… I call it a day.
I may not grizzle, but I do know when I’ve had enough drizzle.
Posted by icelandpenny on 18 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/18/drizzle-no-grizzle/
13 October 2025 – It is a sodden day. Sodden skies. Sodden streets. Sodden umbrellas over human heads. Sodden feathers atop that pigeon.
A dispirited context, in other words.
All the more reason to enjoy the flamingos.
Which, even though shocking pink…
are “green.”
One less car!
(Only later, looking more closely at the decal, do I notice it is one less car because somebody torched it, not because Rad Power chose to ride a bicycle.)
A final moment of appreciation for the total look, right down to those handsome wooden running boards…
and I go about my business.
Posted by icelandpenny on 13 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/13/dance-of-the-green-flamingos/
10 October 2025 – Given this is a simple post about a simple walk on a route we have walked before, you and I, it does seem excessive to lead with a philosophic tussle about the nature of “change.” But tussle we shall. Precisely because , for me anyway, same-old and change are a package deal.
On the one hand, French critic/novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, who, in 1849, penned the epigram we quote to this day: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (The more things change, the more they stay the same). On the other hand, Zen Buddhist monk Shunryu Suzuki, who, when asked after a California lecture in 1968 to express core Buddhist philosophy in a way ordinary people could understand, replied: “Everything changes.”
The “same,” in this post, is yet another walk along Lost Lagoon. You know the route! Bus ride to the edge of Stanley Park; Lost Lagoon trail out to Second Beach on English Bay; Seawall for a bit up toward Third Beach & down again; out through Morton Park; on down Denman Street; that same bus, reverse direction.
Ohhh… let’s just toss French philosophers & Zen Buddhist monks to one side. Let’s acknowledge what every walker of familiar pathways knows: the same is never the same.
Each time, you & your mood & the place & the weather & all the swirling molecules of the universe dance together in new patterns to create a new experience.
It is therefore my pleasure to offer you moments from this day’s totally different version of the same old Lost Lagoon walk.
This specific Canada Goose, pensive on his rock in Lost Lagoon…
specific people & pooches along the way, including Hamish the wag-tail dog and the Vivaldi fan listening (very quietly) to The Four Seasons while resting on a weathered Seawall bench…
and another bench, the bench itself and the plaque it bears both brand-new.
We carefully cross the bike path and move closer. Flowers, notes, CDs and plaque — a multi-dimensioned tribute by local fans to Hong Kong Mandopop artist Khalil Fong, who shot to fame with Soulboy in 2005 and died this year, just months after the release of The Dreamer.
Out in English Bay, this specific moment’s arrangement of the same-old tableau: rocks & tide & freighters & Seawall pedestrians & trees & sky & clouds.
Up close: tidal flats silvered in this afternoon’s watery light.
Also up close: a burst of green & ochre.
And then, medium-distance, a moment’s drama, out there in the bay.
We have just watched this couple strip to bathing suits and stride into those chilly waters. Chest-high, no hesitation.
It is all about to change. He (L) is about to duck-dive and fully embrace the moment. She (R) is about to un-embrace the moment, and head smartly for shore.
We, snug in our fall clothing, head smartly for Denman Street, Delaney’s Coffee House, and a flat white & latte respectively. And then, warm inside & out, on down Denman to the bus.
See? It’s the same-old.
And every bit of it wonderfully different.
Posted by icelandpenny on 10 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/10/change/
6 October 2025 – We are up & off the Sea to Sky Highway, just beyond Squamish, toes to rivulets of the Cheakamus River.
The salmon run season has begun and — if we’re lucky — we’ll see salmon battling their way back upstream in their natal creeks & rivers, to spawn.
We couldn’t ask for better conditions. The day is sunny & mild, and the view, whether downstream…
or upstream…
is glorious.
Our eyes are trained on the turbulent white water in that far upstream channel, over there high on the left.
We tell ourselves: Yes! A flash of fins! An arched back! Yes!
(Truth is, I’m not sure. Not really-truly.)
But, y’know…
The mud flats gleam with swirling chocolate patterns…
the pebbles & rocks are varied & colourful…
the sun is warm on our backs…
and the music of tumbling water fills our ears.
So…. did I see any salmon? Don’t really know.
Posted by icelandpenny on 6 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/06/seen-not-seen/
2 October 2025 – I’m over at St. George & East 6th, hunkered down for the view south along this stretch of the St. George Rainway.
Then I pay serious attention to the map — to the lost small-c creek and to the lost big-c False Creek as well, lost when (1915 onward) they filled in the final stretch to create industrial & railway land. I trace my finger along that bright turquoise line, showing us the shoreline that used to be.
I study the 1889 photo…
and then I go study the 2025 reality, from that same Main & 7th intersection.
Well… the mountains are the same!
Posted by icelandpenny on 2 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/02/then-now/
26 September 2025 – Not for the first time. and especially not for the first time in fall, I stop at the W 41st & Oak Street entrance to the VanDusen Botanical Garden, and wriggle happily at the colour contrasts.
Citrus yellows! Deep furry greens! Deep glossy greens!
And, while I’m wriggling, how about the reds palette in that shrub?
Leaves toss in the breeze, proving even their undersides have their own blushing story to tell, a subtle counterpoint to all that show-off stuff on top.
We meet, my friend and I, and start walking later than intended — but for irresistible reasons.
We get talking with a Calgary couple who decided to celebrate their 43rd wedding anniversary in take-a-trip style. Conversation ranges from where they live in Calgary (since friend & I each have Calgary histories); to what colour is the most fun to dye your hair (Calgary woman’s daughter once had hair that glowed in ultra-violet light, great for nightclubs); to their anticipation of the free cart tours the VanDusen offers people whose enthusiasm outpaces their legs.
They await their cart. We veer off to the right, my favourite VanDusen walks almost always starting on the floating bridge through the Roy R. Forster Cypress Pond. After that, one path leads to another and choice doesn’t much matter, because they’re all worth walking.
Colours definitely now on the shift. Shapes also, as leaves fall and seed pods develop, and more sculptural lines emerge.
A whole dazzle of yellows, up in the sunflower beds.
Yellow-yellow…
and yellow-yellow with tawny-orange colleagues farther back…
and then a reminder that the range on display is not only colour, but height as well.
Giants gravely bend their heads, as if to inspect these tiny humans down below…
while bees (count ’em, two) prove…
they can visit any height they want.
Time out to take souvenir photos for some visiting Peruvians.
“¡Queso!” I cry; “¡Queso!” they chorus back at me, all of us laughing that “cheese” works equally well in both languages, to evoke a smile for the camera.
A pearly shimmer, in path and seed heads, among all the shades of green…
and then we spend yet more time walking up and around the grounds before looping back down again.
Still happy with whatever path our feet happen to discover, and still discovering more plays of colour, in this annual seasonal dance.
Greens falling away, in deciduous trees…
allowing all those yellows/golds/oranges/reds to have their moment. All that, against the quiet majesty of coniferous dark green.
And then… look!
a coyote.
And farther down the path…
an owl.
Still farther…
another winsome coyote, one paw raised.
I later discover they (and more, in this harvest celebration) are works by Burnaby BC artist Nickie Lewis, whose eco-creatures I first saw in a Burnaby park back in 2021. (When we all badly needed charm and delight, in our pandemic-hedged lives.)
We re-meet the Calgary couple, who can’t rave enough about their cart tour of the Garden. They’re now off to a slap-up expensive lunch in the serious restaurant — that anniversary deserves every tribute they can offer it — and we head, equally cheerful, for the café.
What with both Calgary and those twig coyotes built into my day, it’s perhaps inevitable that I now start reminiscing about Coyote Pancake Mix. It’s an Alberta brand I discovered in my Calgary years, its image the silhouette of a coyote and its slogan (wait for it): “a howling success.”
Quite possibly, all this means more to me than to my friend — oh, you think? — but she is generous in her friendly attention. We enter the café, well pleased with our day.
You might even call it a howling success.
Posted by icelandpenny on 26 September 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/09/26/on-the-shift/
19 September 2025 – You come back home with fresh eyes for your own city.
I wake up yesterday and, just before 7 a.m., stare awe-struck at the grandeur of clouds drifting above and among the mountains, in a still-opalescent sky.
Aand today, just now, I fall into fits of giggles at the decals on this slightly battered car.
First, the grouping as a whole…
and then, the exquisitely perfect placement of the cat claws vis-à-vis the dings in the car body.
After that I stroll the perimeter of Dude Chilling Park, just ’cause it’s my local park and I love the way The Dude watches over us…
from his perch on the south/east corner of this ordinary patch of grass.
“Ordinary” to the eye, that is — not-very-large rectangle of grass, some trees around, some benches around, and that’s it. But people gravitate, in considerate and companionable ways, and they enjoy themselves and they thrive and they make magic.
Today’s magic: what I find at the south/west corner of the park.
A pop-up street sale is underway, one I’m sure no City authorities ever heard about (let alone licensed) and who cares, because it’s only a few tables and lots of good humour. I learn this young woman has clothes on offer because she’s moving to Rome tomorrow and can’t take everything; I learn this other young woman collects stuff and then moves it on, y’know?; and I learn that grizzled guy, the one with the racks of old LPs, is a Rolling Stones fan. I learn this last factoid because, when I tell him it was a thrill to see the name of jazz great Joe Pass once again, he replies, eyes a-gleam, “With the Stones!” I manage to contain my enthusiasm for the Stones, he ditto for Joe Pass — but we agree in our enthusiasm for Dude Chilling Park.
So there you are.
I am back home.
Posted by icelandpenny on 19 September 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/09/19/grandeur-to-giggles/
WALKING WOMAN 