What Remains

Photograph

Bones and shells of sea and air animals fill a large ceramic bowl. Here, I can admire ‘what was’, ‘who has been’, ‘what was made’.

Rachelle Chinnery

Even though Rachelle grew up in an urban environment, she has always looked for solace in the natural world. Little wooded bits near the subdivision where she lived, and Mount Royal, the big hill in the middle of the city of Montreal were places where she discovered nature. When Rachelle moved to British Columbia in 1980, she felt she had discovered another colour in the rainbow. This was primordial earth. Now, Rachelle goes to open spaces the way her ancestors went to church: reverentially seeking answers and actively cultivating a greater awareness of this world.

My MA-IS program of study is an independent track focusing on Developmental Writing. This image of a bowl filled with remains sits near my desk beside my computer in which I have a virtual bowl that fills with each course I take. A file in my computer contains bits of words—quotes from fellow students, bookmarks to Internet sites they have suggested—all from people I have never seen or met; they only exist in the ether of my on-line studies. It has occurred to me that these beautiful bits of information are mirrored in the beautiful bits of what so many creatures have left behind. Like these animals, we leave traces of ourselves wherever we go.