Some notes on day 1 ~ June 9th 2010 from Marie

by Marie Rolfe

At the end of day 1 and 22km walking with my friend and sister Heidi, we hopped into the car and I immediately felt as though my umbilical chord to nature, to the earth was pinched. We could no longer smell all the different flowers that filled the air through the intense moisture of the air, that we could also feel while walking (and being soaking wet for 9 hours!) It must be possible to stay connected with nature while in a moving vehicle, but it seemed so hard to picture a similar connection with the earth while moving so quickly by everything, plus I was tired and thinking wasn't the easiest thing to do.


During our first day walking we were called to walk down the dump and consider 'garbage' in new ways. The street leading to the dump was gravel but it was covered and coated in sand and dirt but a colour that was completely different than any road we walked or saw all day. It was as though it was a cushion, a cloud, a smooth gentle surface of what seemed to be like coffee ice cream. If you could picture ice cream being warm and maintaining it's form it felt like we were walking on smooth, creamy, warm coffee ice cream. (I realize that it's a hard concept to grasp - warm ice cream that isn't melted but keeps its form.) But our feet felt carried and supported so gently on this road as we were about to go on a journey into our garbage.

Not too long after we found a turkey vulture feather and spent time by the dump, we encountered a sunken swamp off highway 87. Driving by it would likely be missed, but it was about 30m wide by 120m in length. There were lily pads, fallen trees, floating logs, weeds growing through the top of the water. It looked just like a Louisiana Bayou. With trucks whizzing by our backs as we faced the swamp, I contemplated how the swamp was also a dumping ground but full of life, a place of collection and yet so important. It was here where I had a ring to give to Heidi, a green emerald to which she said it looked just like a canoe. When she said this the following question came up: Imagining you are on a canoe on this swamp, you peer over the edge into the water, how do you see yourself? I invite you to go to a swamp on a canoe and ask yourself this question.