Vancouver visit

Goodbye Nanaimo.

Well, the adventure is over, for now. Back to the hot breath of Toronto in a heat wave.

Leaving Nanaimo was sad, in that I had not had very many opportunities to enjoy it in sunny warm weather. I know now that there have to be many names for rain. I feel I have inveted some. Rain certainly featured greatly in my drawings, my colour schemes and sometimes my mood.

I read, wrote, painted and thought about where I am right now in my life. Certainly, it was a big part of the meaning of this journey. I might have considered it to be bad luck that there was wet weather during this trip, but in another way, it was good for me too. Contemplative.

As I left Nanaimo, the rain was a tearful goodbye, but tapered off as I neared Vancouver. The bus ride into the city was quicker because it was taking a different route into the city than when I came to the ferry in April.

Vancouver is wonderful. My first visit to the city was back in the late 70's. I had landed in Vancouver, gone to Richmond to help equip a van for travel up into the Rockies. I had been driven around Stanley Park once and that is all I remember. I was off to the Rockies to paint. Such a different story.

Moishe Safdie's Vancouver Library.

I am a huge Emily Carr fan but have yet to see her presented as a strong, bold visionary of her Canadian lanscape. One more public art piece.

WHAT is this man doing? Being a Torontonian, feeding these guys is just trouble in the making.

This time, I got the full treatment as a tourist. Several good friends showed me their Vancouver. I love that. Granville Island on two different occasions. Commercial Drive. Denman. Georgia. Gastown. Canada Place, Broadway and of course Stanley Park.

The Stanley Cup playoffs were on, so the Mermaid was appropriatly "dressed".

Stanley Park is magnificent.The damage left from that terrible storm, the amount of destruction of very large trees sheared off halfwaywas a terrible thing but there is a lot of new growth and the park is still majestic. Prospect Point as well as other spots make you feel you are a million miles away from at least a million people.

When I first arrived, I stayed with a friend who lives facing Stanley Park. She is a daily witness to the lives of a blue heron colony that nests on the border of the park.

She described the cold spring as a misery to the herons as they and their eggs were heavily predated by the Bald Eagles. The way she described it made it sound very political...you know, eagle America, heron Canada?

While in Vancouver, I ate one of the most fantastic Japanese meals I've ever had. I had amazing fish everywhere I tried it. Coffee seems to be an art here. Suffice it to say that I was entirely charmed by the place.

There was always a high place to witness the ever changing weather.

 

We went to Queen Elizabeth Park. Apparently, it is an extinct volcano.

The Henri Moore sculpture.

The indoor gardens were orchid heaven.

The pathways had every kind of rhododendron colour on display.

While we were there, we saw a display of colours that peacocks couldn't compete with. It was graduation week for UBC and all the girls and the dresses were out in force. Photos were being taken all over the park. Giggling was the general sound.

Granville Market is an island that is a market, an art school, lots of craftsmen, artisans and boats.

There is also a boathouse colony that are more like homes on the water than what I would have pictured as boathouses.

Lots of Rube Goldberg machines and some pretty inventive school art projects floating around.

Too many cars in too small a space would be the only drawback.

Nanaimo and Vancouver (and possibly Victoria though I did not take notice) have all the taxis as hybrid cars. A bit of a misery for the taxi companies when this was instituted, but a very green solution for the province.

We also did the Museum of Anthropology. It was one of the most peaceful places I have ever been. The building, designed by Arthur Erikson, was set on a beautiful piece of property near the University.

And, of course, the most wonderful Bill Reid sculpture of the creation story.

As beautiful from the back as from in front.

These boxes rang a memorey for me. We used to have one in our house when I was a kid.

The Museum has walls of window that display the totems perfectly. It's hard to describe the feeling and the light of being inside that building, but it was almost like a spiritual feeling.

We sat outside near these buildings and poles, a small reflecting pond and watching the crows play in the water and we both felt very renewed.

The last few days in Vancouver were  spectacular for sunshine. What a welcome feeling to be warm, in cutoffs and sandals and a sunhat. My sunglasses finally got used.

I got to ride on the subway system as I am very fond of trains. It's really great but the automated ticket system was a little confusing for going between zones. AND...the whole system is an honor one. I wondered, more than once, how well that would work in a place like Toronto.

Finally, the last day was here, and we boarded the plane in overcast weather. Watching our baggage go on board closed the door on this trip and before I knew it, I was home.

Lots of pictures (almost 1,000) and lots of memories of very special sights will be with me forever.

Now for the adventure of finding my garden under the jungle it became in the 6 weeks I was away.

Any suggestions for the next adventure?

Rain

Today the rain is soft. It starts out with small drops onto the tiles in the garden, creating a pattern that slowly fills in to make them different and darker tiles. Sound is muffled, yet the voices of people who are outdoors seems to be quite clear. The voices of the crows and ravens are always clear.

I stand under a tree, trying to get pictures of rain drops on the plants and the rain makes a sound on the leaves like raindrops on a tent roof. In a way, under the tree is like a tent. The rain does not get through.

As it rains harder, the small puddles finally accumulate on the street. The drops collect on the wire deer proofing fence. Patterns from dripping rooves form on the pathway. The picnic table becomes a mirror for the sky.

Sometimes the rain comes in patches. I'm able to watch as the patch travels over an area and crosses near me, but not on me. The patches on the ocean are like frosted glass. Sometimes, these patches are almost like mist.

The tales and legends that come from this coast are ones that come naturally, created by these magic mists, these almost live emmanations, spectral beings that pass, whispering as they go by. Almost like the description of inspiration where you need to run and catch it before it is gone, I almost feel the need to follow the rain to hear more of what it has to say.

The crows and ravens that inhabit this wet landscape seem to follow me to see what I have to say to them. Even in this rain, they land nearby and roar at me “Mind what I have to say”.

I had a dream, as a young woman, that I was a spirit in search of a form. I looked at many different forms, seeing the pros and cons of each and finally decide on a clam. This is a safe place to be of the world but hidden from some of it. Just as I am about to enter that form, a seagull picks up the clam. It is soaring high and drops it on the stony beach and the clam breaks open. Alas, this is not what I want to be after all. I think that since the seagull can beat the clam (rocks, paper, scissors) I should be a seagull. My strategy for accomplishing this is to find a high place and jump into the gull as it soars by. I find a place with great updrafts and when a gull comes by, I jump at my chance...and miss. I fall, fall, fall into it's shadow. And I became a raven. Or maybe I should write Raven. It showed me who I was or needed to be. I have always taken the Raven as my personal spirit animal. I'm sure that they have not finished showing me which way I must travel next. All I know is that they called to come west this year and are still whispering in my ears. Somehow, it all sounds like the rain.