saltspring

I wonder how many people in the world carry a piece of a place within them... somewhere that is home to them, the smells, sounds and the feel of the air on their faces...

Even though I didn't grow up on the west coast, it's embedded somewhere behind my diaphragm, between my ribs. The rhythm of waves on shore is a background track to much of my life, and the smell of low tide makes me smile. I'm never here long enough, and never frequently enough.

On the ferry from Saltspring to Crofton this afternoon, in the blinding sunshine, I wanted time to stop. I wanted to be alone-but-not-lonely standing on the top deck of a boat watching the driftwood and fishing boats, one masted dingys and kayaks, for the rest of eternity.

Justine said she thinks of me as surrounded by water, as though even when I am on dryland, I am somehow aquatically inclined.

The coast is my check. The tune, whistled in the wind, that I am relentlessly trying to pick up and carry.