The End and The Beginning, and The Middle

It is time to close off this account of my experiences in Japan and the following re-entry back into what was my world, and is my world, and will be my world. My re-entry process has not been completed, nor will it ever be complete as my time in Japan has completely altered my view of the world around me and so I take it with me every day.

This is the end of this account and sharing of this particular portion of my world in this time.

Thanks for reading

April 28, 2006

I got out of camp today. I got out on the Skookum with this cool kid, Brian, at 8:30. It was a good ride. Long, but good. We talked a tonne and I have had a few epiphanies as a result of our conversations through the boat ride, the car ride, the ferry ride. Nothing that I'm going to share here though.

I'm on the ferry over to Nanaimo and I'm looking out over the ocean towards the island and it looks like there's this green haze, a green fog that is sitting on top of the ocean just before the island and then the mountains from the island rise up above it. It's really weird. It reminds me of the Simpson's episode with the toxic fog that turns their skin inside out. Wow, I can see Baker too to the South. The islands closest to the ferry are moving at a different rate than the skyline of downtown Vancouver, and it's at a different rate than Baker. It feels like one of those puppet show backgrounds where pictures of one depth of field are moving independent of those in front or behind it. Man, it's stunning. How can anyone not live here. It's rising up from behind the city of Vancouver with all it's high rises which is peeking out from behind a small rock island with a few "hut" houses on it. Now this is the place to be. This is where your heart arises to say, "Anything that could make something so beautiful and wild has got to be a good entity". The water is perfectly calm clear across the Straight. It looks kinda eerie. Like a poster from the movie "Dead Calm" or something.

It's been a good day. When I get in, we're all supposed to go for dinner. The fam time dinner, I guess.

April 22, 2006

So the rain finally stopped last night. It had been teeming for two days non-stop. This morning it was sunny and beautiful. The air still has a chill to it when you're in the shade but the sun warms you to the bones, without being hot. I don't like hot.

I've been working in the Trader the last two days. I haven't just been inside all day. I did venture out for a bit. I wanted to take some pictures but everywhere I went was so stunningly beautiful that I felt like the camera just wasn't capturing it. I was walking out through the golf course that, as usual, is lush and green and the sun was pouring in through the trees. The shadows were amazing but I just can't capture any of it so I put my camera away and wandered through taking it all in. Made me feel a little more grounded to this place. It will be good to be here for just two weeks. Time to move on to life in Victoria, but it's been a good transition back to North America. Keeps me grounded in what's going on in civilization. Keeps me from getting too caught up in the things that just don't matter.

April 25, 2006

I've had a really good week. I've been happy for the most part, calm and relaxed, interactive with my surroundings. It really has been a healthy time for me this past week. But I feel the pressure building again. It's 1:30 in the morning and I can't sleep. Couldn't last night either. I'm tired. I'm really tired, but every time I try to sleep I end up all up in my own brain and things get out of hand and I end up getting up cause I don't want to cry myself to sleep anymore. I had stopped this week actually. It was nice to just go to bed at a normal time and go to sleep almost right away. I don't have that anymore. I was sitting out on the deck, listening to the generator hum away (we lost Hydro power today in the middle of the day, sounds like it's really, really serious), looking at the stars. It seems like I've come full circle. I was here, feels like a lifetime ago and yet not so long ago at the same time, doing the same thing as I am now. Not able to sleep thinking about how I'm supposed to figure out what life looks like without...

I've seen what a normal life looks like and it's people just trying to fill up their time and occupy their minds with whatever they can find to fill in the empty gaps. It's sad. It's exhausting. I have a new appreciation for people who can live like that (and the majority of the human race does) and not go insane. But then, maybe that's the thing, maybe we are all insane but no one can tell about the people around them cause they're too caught up in their own insanity.

So many years here and they all seem to blend into each other. Time on this rock is rather intangible. I feel like I've never left, like I've never existed off this rock. Soon it will be like I never existed on it. And I think there's more truth in that, we don’t' really exist in this place, we're caught in a time between earth and heaven where the spiritual work that needs to be done in everyone that steps foot here is carried out around us. Sometimes we get a glimpse of it. Sometimes we get to be a part of it. But for the most part it swirls around us, catching us up in it at times without us knowing it, and is brought to completion in some other place. The spiritual world knows no time or place. This place is so saturated in it that it takes on some of those very properties of intangibility.

April 24, 2006

After lunch clean up I went and sat out on Flag Point for like most of the rest of the afternoon. I love that I'm able to do that. I did a logic puzzle and lay in the sun in a tank top on the grass. It's so lush and beautiful here. I get captured in little moments of being aware of the things around me. I want to be able to share those moments. It's been so incredible the past few days. The sun is out and the skies are perfectly clear. I'm actually able to enjoy being around here and because it's beautiful out and because I have no real responsibilities I'm not stressing about anything and I'm able to take in this place and the trees and the shadows and the sun and the ocean. There's a tonne of mergansers around this year and they're hilarious to watch. Christy and I were just talking in Tilikum and she was like, "Is that Stormy over there, or is that the bear?" It was the bear, just lumbering around on the rocks by the mill on the other side of the rapids.

How amazing is it that I can come to this place and enjoy being here. It's amazing. Still wish that I could share it though. I've been able to release so much that I want others I care about to be able to release and feel comfortable again.

I am still amazed at how open people are to sharing so much of themselves with so many of the people around them. I've gotten really comfortable with the way things are up here right now. Like we're all a part of this nice little family, living on this random rock, working for these unseen entities who will appear sometime in the future, but who I will never actually get to see. Maybe that's part of why I feel so released from here, I'm not working with the coming summer looming over me. I'm able to see camp for what it is in this moment, at this time in the shoulder season and have nothing vested in anything beyond that.

April 20, 2006

I actually hadn't really noticed that it's been raining for a while until people started mentioning, "When's this rain going to let up?" It's chilly, but I'm so much more comfortable here than I was in Japan. I think I'm even more comfortable here than I am in Victoria. Maybe it's the release from having to look good and not like a dirty hippy, although, if you can get away with being a dirty hippy anywhere, you can get away with it in Victoria. I'm really enjoying the people up here. Last night I had a fabulous talk with a friend about life and crap and his time in jail and stuff. He's so very open to sharing so much of himself. I also really like getting to know the two girls up here. I love that I'm able to connect with them. I missed out on so many of the girls when I lived here before cause I was so concerned about getting all my own stuff done.

April 17, 2006

I woke up this morning, late, rushed and out of sorts. Staying up too late last night didn't help. We drove up to Egmont, unloaded the van onto the new green boat, the Laker. We had to wait for some other folks. Everyone was chatting away in the boat on the way up and I just looked out the window, taking in all the formerly familiar sights. It's wild how I used to lie in bed at night, in the heat of Japan and think of the inlet. The water, the trees, the giant air. The air feels bigger here. Maybe it's because there's so much room to breath. The air seems tangibly exist all the way up into the mountains and comes down right to the ocean. Like we're breathing in the exhaled air of the mountains. Instead of taking in all that surrounds me I seem to still just be seeing it, not experiencing it. Like I'm watching it on tv or something. And my mind is taken in to the swirl in my brain of memories and sights all over again.

Approaching the rapids, there she stood in front of me, like hundreds of times before, all just as sweet as the first...the Malibu Club. The name has struck fear and excitement into my heart for years. She has meant so many things to me, but the under-current of my life when here, like the pull of the ever-changing yet ever-constant rapids, as been the pull of a yearning who's resolution has always felt just out of my grasp. What is it about this place that makes you question who you are and how it came to be that your existence has been made significant. We passed through to the pool side and there we got a great first look at the newest improvement to the face of this place. The Dining Room and new Kitchen.

We landed at the dock and unloaded stuff. I was so happy to see Sharon. I feel like I get, and am gotten by, Sharon. I grabbed my bags and started up the stairs to the side of Big Squawka. I passed by the back door. Tim used to be in there, doing his sound thing. I felt like I was walking through a dream.

The Return
Walking the rocks, I see friendly faces in the empty rooms.
I hear the running feet on the silent board walks.
I feel the hurry and pressure of the demands of the day in slow walk of nothing to do.
I used to exist in this place.
Now I walk through it with the slow tread of an outsider, taking it all in for the first time.

As I walked through the new kitchen renovation, I was kinda awe-struck. It's a lot to take in and process. I walked through the rooms, yes there are roomS now, I had to take it all in slowly, looking at everything, trying to find some sort of point of reference to bring me back to the place that I know. Oh, there's the mixer, and the tilting skillet. I'm sure I looked odd, gaping like a fish with my eyes wide open. I moved into the Dining Room and found some familiar faces. I saw Dorothy first, don't think she remembered me though, then Kyle sweeping in the corner. Then I saw Ian over against the far wall. Wall, haha, Wall. Never mind. I gave him a big hug and I have to say that I felt so proud of him and the whole construction crew at that moment. I whispered to him, "Good job, Ian. It looks great."

I headed down into the new Inn. It's been done for quite some time, but I haven't been here for just under 2 years so a lot has changed. I found Sharon in the "kitchen" so I decided to stay awhile and help prep lunch. I'm not much help though. After lunch I was sweeping up and she asked me to come outside with her for a smoke. I'm never one to pass up a smoke, although I never actually suck on a cigarette, it's just all about chilling out with someone, chatting outside. It was nice to talk with her. She told me that I was made to love. She's known it from the first time she knew me. I'm meant to be a woman in love, that I've tried so hard to be hard, to have it all together, but that it's not what I'm meant to be. We talked about me loving big. I feel like it's supposed to be a patient love that isn't going anywhere. It's not going anywhere.

I'm not going anywhere.

The afternoon was spent with Christy in the office. We hauled that place out. It was an awesome time to get to know her and how she thinks. We're incredibly alike in a lot of ways. Our personalities are different but the way that we process things and go about things is very similar. I'm so excited to hear how her summer goes and how she's able to grow in the areas that she will. I'm really happy to see her in there. I feel like someone has come along behind me and cares about this place and wants to see it run well and efficiently, just as I wanted to. The way we may do it might be different, but I see that she has taken on the responsibility of this place and that makes me feel at ease. After dinner, I went and chucked the crap from the office out on the giant burning pile of crap from camp. After cleaning up a few more things, I went back and stood there. Often when I watch fire, I like to watch the flames, watch them dance and spark. This time I was drawn to the wood, and other crap, and watched it be consumed. It's not like I was watching anything in specific, but watching the slow process of the pile (or the giant piece of flooring sample) just get smaller. It's an exercise in patience. And warmth.

Now I sit in the darkness of Tili lounge, in front of the fireplace, my back cold against the empty room behind me. It's odd being here. It's odd being anywhere.

April 16, 2006

I almost missed the bus this morning. I didn't, but I almost did. I caught the city bus into town and walked around till I found the Best Western that I was to catch the Quick Shuttle to the airport. It was a beautiful day. Too bad it wasn't this nice yesterday when I was trying to take pictures. I hope I got some good ones of the Space Needle, with my Easter Egg for breakfast. The ride up was not fun. I was unable to get out of my own brain. Everything that I saw seemed so real but intangible. Yes I realize that's a contradiction. Lots goes on in my brain that's a contradiction. I was really into watching things out the window and listening to really soulful music. In my brain was a future time. I wrote lots. Cried more.

I met with Terri and Harold at the airport. I wanted to be held and my whole day came crashing around me. We picked up the office Intern, Christy, and went to Earl's for some giant salads for lunch. I used to not be a fan of Earl's. The salads have brought me around. We're staying the night at a friend's place in Garden Bay. It's a really beautiful place. Huge. We had some curried goodness for dinner, went for a walk and then watched some tv. I went back to the main house and stayed up all night watching stupid tv. Stupid things, like Mike Holmes, set me off. He has nice big shoulders too. Stupid shoulders.

April 15, 2006

I spent the morning getting info on making Ukranian eggs for Easter tonight. I took the bus out to the U District to get the Kiska's and such for egg making festivities. Then I bused into town and went walking around Pike's. Everything about my day has been beautiful. The weather is amazing, and by amazing I mean stormy and gray. The ocean is black and alive. Walking around Pike's always makes me happy, but as with everything right now, all happiness is a sad kind of happy. I smile at something beautiful and cry. It's like I feel like I can't actually enjoy what I'm experiencing. Like it would be disloyal to the unbeautiful things in the world. I took some shots, hope they work, and I walked in the rain and I saw four giant black guys singing gospel in front of Starbucks and some chicks on fiddles playing some cool celtic stuff. And then I went into a back alley and cried. I ended up in a funk for the rest of the day, walking through the rain, getting soaked, laughing at the wind and torrents and then crying because it was all so beautiful.

I got back home and we made up some dinner quick. I shared some of my photos and stories with one of the roommates and then we all made eggs. I stayed up till like 3:30 trying to clean everything up and get packed.

April 14, 2006

Today we slept in. When we got up I made some breakfast while she was in the shower and then we ate and talked lots, or rather, I talked lots. She went off to work for noon and I bummed around and showered and cleaned the kitchen till a friend from Japan came and got me at like 2:30. It was odd seeing him outside of Japan. We went for lunch at this ale house on 74th that was uber cool. We talked about stuff and had a great walk there and back. After lunch we bummed around the neighbourhood and his old stomping grounds. Then we hit Home Depot to buy some plants and seeds for my wonderful host. He dropped me off to meet her at the coffee shop and we cleaned up so that we could go to church with her co-worker who happens to be a leader with the friends I was with last night. Small YL world that it is. Church kinda got to me. The first piece of music was a chamber type piece, all vocal. The harmonies were unbelievable. Makes me want to get into a chamber choir when I get back to Victoria. It was all just really beautiful and it all just made me sad. After church, we headed off in search for some grub. We went into Fremont for some fab Thai food at KwonJai's. We were talking about differences in cultures. I feel like I'm not able to accurately describe things or talk about how people think differently. I see the confusion that many people have when I describe things in a Japanese frame of mind. I definitely felt like I wasn't being understood, mostly because I just can't get my thoughts across. Then we went for a pint and stayed and talked but it was loud, so we headed home.

April 13, 2006

After work, I got on the Clipper and came to Seattle. I got picked up by some friends and we went back to their place to chat. They showed me the house that they're building. We talked about Japan and all things Old School YL. I was finally able to get a hold of Anna-Lisa and we went back to her place to briefly connect and go to bed.

April 8, 2006

Woke up this morning with Nen & Ry in the house. It was fun to all sit down to breakfast that Dad was making and bicker and laugh and eat sausages with maple syrup on them. The day was really beautiful. It was overcast but the air was clear. A young eagle came and landed right in the tree between the house and the dock. He was almost full size, but his feathers were still coming in so he wasn't a crisp black and white but more mottled. His head had puffs of brown between the white feathers. We were worried about the cat who was out on the lawn and Mum said that she didn't really want to have proof to give to Aunt Shirley that an eagle could fly off with a cat, so I went down to stand guard and watch him. He moved to another tree and sat there before flying off to dive at some of the smaller birds sitting on the lake. As I was walking back up the stairs, I was struck by how clear things seem here: laughing with my family, watching an eagle get his feathers, the fresh crisp air that speaks of either impending or passing rain, eating sausages with maple syrup (I think I mentioned that already but it bears repeating), and being in a beautiful house that my Dad has pretty much totally remade with his own hands.

After rummaging around in the basement with my Mum for some lost antique table legs of Nen & Ryan's, us kids headed into town. I caught I ride with them to the mall where we parted ways and I took the bus into Heidi's and they drove out to the Peninsula for a family birthdays dinner with the Nen's family. I met up with Heids at her place and we sat in the kitchen talking for several hours. I made tapioca for desert and she was making homemade (not store bought and then cooked) ravioli. Brooklyn came a little later and we got the wine open, finished cooking and then sat in the front window watching the rain and the people passing by on the street as we eat our fab, giant meal of ravioli and salad. We talked the whole evening. It's so cool to have people around who agree so much with your own life philosophy. We talked about the ridiculousness of much of organized religion as a programme enriched entity void of much of the grace and variety that encompasses the people of Christ. We all grew up in the church and we've all been pretty sick of seeing how it is a creation of man as opposed to the thing of God that it's supposed to be. We talked a lot about the "us" versus "them" mentality of many religious people and how our own views have changed since leaving high school and the plethora of "youth programmes" that we were involved in. "Ooo, look at that person! He's smoking. He's a SINNER!" It's interesting to see what aspects of life are normalized in which cultures. Brooklyn was telling us about a roommate of hers in YWAM from, I think, Sweden. Sleeping with someone before you're married is nothing to them because it's natural, but smoking! Putting something toxic and foreign in your body! That makes you a sinner in the Christian world. Here, drinking 5 cups of coffee in a day is okay, but having a glass of wine with dinner and it's "I'll pray for your soul, brother". Both are addictive and bad for your body in high quantities. Both are foreign substances to put in your body. In North America, one is socially acceptable, the other isn't. And I don't mean in a general view, but as something that within the tightly woven Christian community is viewed as a moral sin that separates you from God. In my view, both do. In others views, neither do. In still others, one does, the other doesn't. The main premise that we came to is that it shouldn't be a value judgment on a person if they decide to have a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee. What are the things that truly matter and what doesn't, well, that all becomes an arbitrary point of opinion.

It was a nice night. We went to bed at a reasonable time. Actually, it was kind of early, but we were all pretty tired.

April 7, 2006

I bummed around the house today and worked on getting some things organized, like taxes, stupid foreign income drama. Then Nenny & Ry came down and we all had dinner together. Aw, family dinner. It was nice to sit around and sometimes it was all of us in the same room, just sitting, not talking, staring out at the lake or the fire or whatever. Just before many of them headed to bed we got talking about when the Boney's and I were in Europe together and told Mum & Dad about the guy peeing in the "urinal" in the wall in Genoa and me peeing in the port-a-potty in our van as we drove. Then Dad told a story about when he was a teenager working up island and he and this other painter guy were driving there in a big old beat up van. The guy really had to pee and Dad wouldn't stop for him so the guy went into the back of the van to pee in a can. Dad pulled really gently all the way over to the shoulder and then cranked the wheel over so that the guy and the can went flying all over the back of the van. Dad was telling the story and laughing his head off. I don't think that I have ever seen my father laugh so much and so hard.

April 5, 2006

I was tired today. Very tired. Lots of entering names and verifying data and checking for Zip Codes. Good fun. My boss and I sat out on the front step today, and then the driveway, in the sun to eat our lunch. It was great. We talked about this and that and the nature of faith and church and living simply and what that looks like for different people. It was good. It was good to share some of myself with her too because I know that she needs that from me. I hope that I can balance my need for privacy and non-forthcoming communication and her need to interact and know what is going on in my head. It's a good deal. I got home early cause I went in with my neighbour so I was home by 4:45. Mum was finishing some tidying for some folks coming tomorrow to talk about design plans for the first home at Lantzville, somehow I was supposed to know that it was happening, I didn't. So we finished some dishes and then went for a walk. I practically had to drag her out of the house. We had a nice walk along the road, although I have to admit that I feel more nervous walking along Shawnigan Lake Road than I am in the middle of traffic in Tokyo. People around here are INSANE! They all drive way to fast around the corners that are totally blind until you're half way through the corner. We talked about some of the stuff that has been an on-going conversation with us about politics and the place of Christians in government as well as some of the stuff that we had talked about earlier today. It was good.

Tonight, after making some pork fried rice, Mum and I worked on some shelves in the attic. We got rid of some stuff. Put some stuff in new places and moved the linens up to the attic. It was good. She gives me a hard time about me giving her a hard time, but in the end we both compromise and the shelves look really good. I've been trying to give her some good organizational tenets for her to keep in her brain. Keep like things together in one place where you'll use them and where they're easy to find. Ask yourself, do I wear/use/need this? Keep what you need to. Get rid of the things you don't. It will help you to enjoy the things that you have cause if they're all packed away in a box then you aren't enjoying any of them. We did well tonight. I will keep reminding her of these things so that when I move to Victoria she'll be able to look around her more discriminately and ask herself the same questions so that she can clear the crap out of her life that stresses her out and that she always complains about. It's funny, she doesn't want the crap and clutter but it's like pulling teeth to get her to give or throw things away.

I find myself constantly with thoughts at the back of my brain, just hovering there. I enjoy the things around me and it makes me want to enjoy them with someone. Today was a glorious, beautiful day and I really wished that I could have really enjoyed it without something missing. I want the people I love to know they are cared for no matter where in the world I am.

April 4, 2006

I hate it when I've had thoughts and I can't get them out or remember them later. It usually happens as I'm trying to go to sleep and I think of some fabulous thing to write and think that I will remember it in the morning. I hardly ever do. And if I do, it's just the concept or idea and not the fabulous words that I had used to define it the night before.

Last night on the way home I was listening to the CBC. There was this young woman on (man, I sound old saying that "There was this young woman, I remember when I was a young woman") who did a piece on making pies with her mum and what she remembers of the farm in Alberta with her parents and her gran. It was nicely done. Calm and intentionally. It went into her mum's kitchen in the city and it was a recording of her and her mum talking. Near the end she was asking her mum if she missed the farm and the "glory days of harvesting". Her mum didn't miss it cause it was hard work but she liked having the skills from then even though she isn't using it. She felt like she fit in, in the city by making herself fit in wherever she is. She keeps the skills from before as something in her in case she ever wants to do it again. You have to press forward in the place where you are and learn new skills. The reporter saw it as more of a shadow of before.

I like sitting at the lake. I wish I had more time to do this at this time. I was really hoping that this would be a chill kind of time but I've been thrown into everything so quickly. Means that I'll have to make the moments that I have count, but then that's sort of the point of having a down time, that you don't need to put pressure on each moment to actually mean something. It's a mass of time where nothing is really happening but "being". I love the sound of the familiar bird calls. They're different here from in Japan. Even Victoria sounds different from here. Here is calming and quiet. The whole day could pass by, by just being and taking in all that surrounds you. I really should open my curtains more. I was gong to go outside and sit in the sun, but when I stuck my foot out the door the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Isn't that always the way.