Hornby Island: the first full day
I woke up well-rested and full of mucous. I peed in the ditch and walked straight to Elaine's vegetable garden, plantar fasciitis throbbing in my left heel. The task at hand was weeding and I did this for some time, blowing my nose into my hand and wiping my hand on...
I didn't know what I was supposed to do with all the mucous, so I kept tottering over to the sink and then remembering it was a water conservation zone and I should go and get one of my shirts from the tent but...
I'm not very smart in mornings. I met Nikki and saw Cole and Emma, who I'd met at the beach fire last night. Scott came and saved me from myself, telling me he'd take me to the free store and recycling depot, after which I could go to the farmer's market. Since I was only there for a few days he wanted me to see what there was outside of Elaine's garden. I asked if I could bring sandwich town and grabbed the smoked tofu, hummous, and bread on the way into Scott's truck. He dropped me at the foot of the road leading to the depot. I hiked through dust and found a rambling outlet of ...everything. Anything that someone might have brought to Hornby and not wanted to take back out with them was there. Largely clothing but some books and household goods. Signs said they were happy to have volunteers so I approached a woman who was hanging swimsuits. She seemed to think it was the cutest thing & spoke of me as their "little volunteer" to her coworkers for the rest of the morning.
Sorted clothes by colour, and then size. It seemed whimsical and as viable as any other way to shop. The dust overwhelmed me so I took a break to eat a sandwich outside. At one point I had a tourist helping me, but she seemed confused as to the way I was sorting through unpaired socks and quit. I found three beautiful tank tops and wore one out. Thick cotton, turquoise and reaching over my hips. The free store had been the counter to Crazy Herbie's Surplus Store with its signs that read DON'T JUST STAND THERE- BUY SOMETHING! These signs suggested you not leave without taking something.
You have to pay the depot to get rid of your recycling. Re-purposing everything is the way it's done.
Hitched* to the market and bought some carrots, tomatoes, gomazio, and a lemon cucumber. I am in a constant state, now, of wishing I had a lemon cucumber. Tonight there will be a Cowboys and Indians party (amazingly not pc) and I am nervously excited, as usual. To Little Trib to strip and swim and float, aching with loneliness. Realized, putting the new top back on, that it was for breastfeeding women as it had holes through which I could put my nipples. Siobhan has that top now. The woman who drove me back to Elaine's farm accepted a roma tomato and went twice as far as her own home in order to drop me off. Next time, I promised myself, I'd bring a bike. Emma has made a fragrant vegetable curry and Bailey, Nikki and I gratefully partook. About half of the residents of the farm are going to the C&I party so I will, too, but laden with cynicism and without a costume.
It's been a full day and I set an alarm for half an hour in the future and lie down...
When I wake it's dark, everyone has left, I've frittered precious hours sleeping, and I want to cry. Jen, her 5-year-old Lucas, her sister and her husband are sitting around a lantern on the other side of the fence. I sit with them for a while and feel better about napping so long. Jen is a biology/ecology master's student and has chosen to focus on being "the stat girl". This is so pragmatic! We talk about relationships, about how I'd hatched some drowsy plan to get back together with Dan while I was half-asleep in the car on the way to Victoria from Wells. How, arriving in Victoria, I'd checked fb and seen "Daniel is in a relationship" at the top of my feed. It seemed like a sign, and was a simplification (I no longer have to make a decision or an effort!), but it hurt in an abstract, consuming way.
She told me about a thing she'd had with someone on the island, where she comes every summer (her healing island)- and how it had ended, and that this summer he'd been expressing a desire to start up again. She said "life is too short to do anything twice." I think getting back together can work in some situations, but usually doesn't. I do have trouble remembering what didn't work about a relationship a few months down the road, and focus my lonely energy on fantasies of walking together and holding hands. Jen loaned me her bike (with a basket!) and gave me directions to the party. When I arrive it is as bad as I'd feared: dude-bros and elaborately made up young women and they've all got those red cups of beer. Thankfully, here are Scott & Bailey! I'm so happy to see them it's as if we're long lost friends. A young man, eyes glazed, hopes we have ecstasy we can sell him. The three of us are a bit out of place but acquire red cups of wine. There's a table with a dozen bottles, offered by the hosts. Best of all: there's a fire in the backyard.
For the next 2 hours I was glued to my chair by the fire and the company of one Aaron Aardvark McMinn. (The Aardvark is there to emphasize that Aaron is pronounced the same way, "arr-in".) He's a healer and an empath, and he presented a convincing argument on how he felt he'd done his best activism "from the inside" while living and working in Fort MacMurray. His presence is so warm and welcoming, I became my best self. Wine will trip you up, however. I went to pee and fell through a pile of branches. He began to make a bit less sense- I told him that I'd been doing this complicated shoplifting-type manoeuver at Superstore, and he stated that it didn't bother him when someone stole from a corporation. I started to justify that I was still paying for food, just not the same kind of food, and he turned around and said that it's always wrong to steal from a person, even if the person is a pedophile thief (?). To be fair, I went back to the same spot that'd tried to kill me, to get some wood for the fire. Turned out there was a pile of wood waiting to be burned on the other side of the fire.
A couple of times while interacting with Scott I felt as though he was flirting with me, which made me uncomfortable because issues. He might just be flirtatious, though, and he let me wear his cowboy hat. The next day I would rue the part of the party that was derogatory to first nations people, but the theme wasn't heavily emphasized. Mostly the owners of the home wanted to show off their place while showering Hornby with wine and potato salad.
THE FAKE HUNGARIAN: at one point I heard a fellow ask another: "habla espanol?" Response: "oui, je habla espanol." That frenish-speaker later smoked a whole bunch of his weed with the rest of the fire crew, and knew that Emese is a Hungarian name. He then proceeded to fill the next half hour of my life (or eternity) with Hungarian that he'd learned from an ex. He was speaking agonizingly slowly and his accent was awful, but I had to give him credit for remembering so many words correctly. I'm assuming they were right, because he strung them into sentences that might have been questions. I tried to get him to return to speaking English a couple of times, but he'd have none of that.
Danced to David Bowie and discovered that, inside, there was FOOD and ate a bunch of it. I wasn't entirely sure, leaving, if I was headed the right way down Cowie or if I was just part of a herd, so I asked if the street ahead was in fact Carmichael. An eavesdropper aggressively wanted to know where I needed to go and gave me drunk directions. Accurate, but insensate to the fact that I knew where the farm was (a right and then a left). Let's be so friendly it's not friendly anymore!
I'm like that too, sometimes.
I wondered if this night would be my first time hearing other people (S&B) having sex, but didn't. Slept.
*hitchhiking on gulf islands isn't even real hitchhiking. You talk to people in stores, politely ask if they're headed your way, and a lot of the time they are. Strangers are pretty much friends you haven't met yet, except for mountain lions.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do with all the mucous, so I kept tottering over to the sink and then remembering it was a water conservation zone and I should go and get one of my shirts from the tent but...
I'm not very smart in mornings. I met Nikki and saw Cole and Emma, who I'd met at the beach fire last night. Scott came and saved me from myself, telling me he'd take me to the free store and recycling depot, after which I could go to the farmer's market. Since I was only there for a few days he wanted me to see what there was outside of Elaine's garden. I asked if I could bring sandwich town and grabbed the smoked tofu, hummous, and bread on the way into Scott's truck. He dropped me at the foot of the road leading to the depot. I hiked through dust and found a rambling outlet of ...everything. Anything that someone might have brought to Hornby and not wanted to take back out with them was there. Largely clothing but some books and household goods. Signs said they were happy to have volunteers so I approached a woman who was hanging swimsuits. She seemed to think it was the cutest thing & spoke of me as their "little volunteer" to her coworkers for the rest of the morning.
Sorted clothes by colour, and then size. It seemed whimsical and as viable as any other way to shop. The dust overwhelmed me so I took a break to eat a sandwich outside. At one point I had a tourist helping me, but she seemed confused as to the way I was sorting through unpaired socks and quit. I found three beautiful tank tops and wore one out. Thick cotton, turquoise and reaching over my hips. The free store had been the counter to Crazy Herbie's Surplus Store with its signs that read DON'T JUST STAND THERE- BUY SOMETHING! These signs suggested you not leave without taking something.
You have to pay the depot to get rid of your recycling. Re-purposing everything is the way it's done.
Hitched* to the market and bought some carrots, tomatoes, gomazio, and a lemon cucumber. I am in a constant state, now, of wishing I had a lemon cucumber. Tonight there will be a Cowboys and Indians party (amazingly not pc) and I am nervously excited, as usual. To Little Trib to strip and swim and float, aching with loneliness. Realized, putting the new top back on, that it was for breastfeeding women as it had holes through which I could put my nipples. Siobhan has that top now. The woman who drove me back to Elaine's farm accepted a roma tomato and went twice as far as her own home in order to drop me off. Next time, I promised myself, I'd bring a bike. Emma has made a fragrant vegetable curry and Bailey, Nikki and I gratefully partook. About half of the residents of the farm are going to the C&I party so I will, too, but laden with cynicism and without a costume.
It's been a full day and I set an alarm for half an hour in the future and lie down...
When I wake it's dark, everyone has left, I've frittered precious hours sleeping, and I want to cry. Jen, her 5-year-old Lucas, her sister and her husband are sitting around a lantern on the other side of the fence. I sit with them for a while and feel better about napping so long. Jen is a biology/ecology master's student and has chosen to focus on being "the stat girl". This is so pragmatic! We talk about relationships, about how I'd hatched some drowsy plan to get back together with Dan while I was half-asleep in the car on the way to Victoria from Wells. How, arriving in Victoria, I'd checked fb and seen "Daniel is in a relationship" at the top of my feed. It seemed like a sign, and was a simplification (I no longer have to make a decision or an effort!), but it hurt in an abstract, consuming way.
She told me about a thing she'd had with someone on the island, where she comes every summer (her healing island)- and how it had ended, and that this summer he'd been expressing a desire to start up again. She said "life is too short to do anything twice." I think getting back together can work in some situations, but usually doesn't. I do have trouble remembering what didn't work about a relationship a few months down the road, and focus my lonely energy on fantasies of walking together and holding hands. Jen loaned me her bike (with a basket!) and gave me directions to the party. When I arrive it is as bad as I'd feared: dude-bros and elaborately made up young women and they've all got those red cups of beer. Thankfully, here are Scott & Bailey! I'm so happy to see them it's as if we're long lost friends. A young man, eyes glazed, hopes we have ecstasy we can sell him. The three of us are a bit out of place but acquire red cups of wine. There's a table with a dozen bottles, offered by the hosts. Best of all: there's a fire in the backyard.
For the next 2 hours I was glued to my chair by the fire and the company of one Aaron Aardvark McMinn. (The Aardvark is there to emphasize that Aaron is pronounced the same way, "arr-in".) He's a healer and an empath, and he presented a convincing argument on how he felt he'd done his best activism "from the inside" while living and working in Fort MacMurray. His presence is so warm and welcoming, I became my best self. Wine will trip you up, however. I went to pee and fell through a pile of branches. He began to make a bit less sense- I told him that I'd been doing this complicated shoplifting-type manoeuver at Superstore, and he stated that it didn't bother him when someone stole from a corporation. I started to justify that I was still paying for food, just not the same kind of food, and he turned around and said that it's always wrong to steal from a person, even if the person is a pedophile thief (?). To be fair, I went back to the same spot that'd tried to kill me, to get some wood for the fire. Turned out there was a pile of wood waiting to be burned on the other side of the fire.
A couple of times while interacting with Scott I felt as though he was flirting with me, which made me uncomfortable because issues. He might just be flirtatious, though, and he let me wear his cowboy hat. The next day I would rue the part of the party that was derogatory to first nations people, but the theme wasn't heavily emphasized. Mostly the owners of the home wanted to show off their place while showering Hornby with wine and potato salad.
THE FAKE HUNGARIAN: at one point I heard a fellow ask another: "habla espanol?" Response: "oui, je habla espanol." That frenish-speaker later smoked a whole bunch of his weed with the rest of the fire crew, and knew that Emese is a Hungarian name. He then proceeded to fill the next half hour of my life (or eternity) with Hungarian that he'd learned from an ex. He was speaking agonizingly slowly and his accent was awful, but I had to give him credit for remembering so many words correctly. I'm assuming they were right, because he strung them into sentences that might have been questions. I tried to get him to return to speaking English a couple of times, but he'd have none of that.
Danced to David Bowie and discovered that, inside, there was FOOD and ate a bunch of it. I wasn't entirely sure, leaving, if I was headed the right way down Cowie or if I was just part of a herd, so I asked if the street ahead was in fact Carmichael. An eavesdropper aggressively wanted to know where I needed to go and gave me drunk directions. Accurate, but insensate to the fact that I knew where the farm was (a right and then a left). Let's be so friendly it's not friendly anymore!
I'm like that too, sometimes.
I wondered if this night would be my first time hearing other people (S&B) having sex, but didn't. Slept.
*hitchhiking on gulf islands isn't even real hitchhiking. You talk to people in stores, politely ask if they're headed your way, and a lot of the time they are. Strangers are pretty much friends you haven't met yet, except for mountain lions.