my second year at Queen’s University in Kingston, I moved back there for what was supposed to be a summer; I ended up staying for four years. That first summer it rained for more than forty consecutive days, but it didn’t bother me. I was working at a company that packaged and distributed incense from a loft in an old industrial building in Gastown. My officemate taught people how to grow food in city spaces and he practised tai chi with his girlfriend at lunchtime. I was living my hippie dream, wearing long, flowing skirts and sharing a house with six other young people. When I called my parents to tell them I’d decided to take a year off school to work and then travel to India with my boyfriend, they were speechless. This was totally off-script, but they couldn’t stop me.
I used to go with friends every summer to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, held at Jericho Beach in Kitsilano. We’d buy a weekend pass and see as much live music as we could. I saw Rita MacNeil, Stephen Fearing, Roy Forbes (better known to us folkies as “Bim”), various Bulgarian wedding bands, and countless local musicians. One memorable night we left the park with the haunting repetition of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing “U.S. out of El Salvador” over and over and over. I remember turning my back on a little stage one day, looking out over the beach and English Bay, over to the mountains on the North Shore. This view, along with the feeling of deep well-being I had throughout the music festival, imprinted itself on my brain, so that whenever I heard the word “Vancouver” these memories came to mind.
When we reached that spot in the ferry ride, I went over to the window to look at the mountains so I could torture myself. Then Yeats was beside me.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You look like you’re crying.”
“Just with happiness. It’s so beautiful.”
He cocked his head at me.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Can I have some money for cookies?”
I gave him some change and he headed for the canteen. The woman next to me said, “Is that your son?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and smiled, and said, “He looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
I noticed lots of people looking at me as Yeats regained the railing and resumed his dance. Yes, I am his mother.
MY FRIEND HEATHER, HER husband, Gord, and their teenaged daughter, Elizabeth, picked us up at the ferry. We drove down the island to a marina where they docked their boat. Their cabin was on De Courcy Island, a gulf island just south of Gabriola. De Courcy is a long, narrow island, about 300 acres of mostly forested land. There are about forty homes on the island, the majority of them seasonal, like our cottage in Muskoka. The boat trip to De Courcy wasn’t long, about ten minutes, then another five or ten minutes in my friends’ pickup truck to the cabin.
And it really was a cabin, perched on a small hillside above a rocky beach. It had a cozy living room/kitchen area and two small bedrooms. The fridge, stove, and on-demand hot water heater were all propane, and the lights and water pump worked off the solar panel installed on the lawn outside. They had a generator for backup, but we didn’t need to run it while we were there.
There was a window seat that looked out over the water and a couch with armchairs around a pot-bellied stove. A long, wooden dining table sat alongside a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, and everything was within arm’s reach of everything else.
We loved it. It was so vastly different from the cottage in Muskoka that I was instantly jealous.
Yeats said, “Why can’t our cottage be like this?”
Heather laughed and said, “But I love your place in Muskoka! Wanna trade?”
Yeats thought about that but didn’t say anything. Then he went outside to play badminton with Elizabeth, followed by their dog, Jake. Jake was a Maltipoo, the cutest and happiest dog I’d ever met.
Heather made a couple of gin and tonics, which we took
I used to go with friends every summer to the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, held at Jericho Beach in Kitsilano. We’d buy a weekend pass and see as much live music as we could. I saw Rita MacNeil, Stephen Fearing, Roy Forbes (better known to us folkies as “Bim”), various Bulgarian wedding bands, and countless local musicians. One memorable night we left the park with the haunting repetition of Sweet Honey in the Rock singing “U.S. out of El Salvador” over and over and over. I remember turning my back on a little stage one day, looking out over the beach and English Bay, over to the mountains on the North Shore. This view, along with the feeling of deep well-being I had throughout the music festival, imprinted itself on my brain, so that whenever I heard the word “Vancouver” these memories came to mind.
When we reached that spot in the ferry ride, I went over to the window to look at the mountains so I could torture myself. Then Yeats was beside me.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You look like you’re crying.”
“Just with happiness. It’s so beautiful.”
He cocked his head at me.
“What’s up?” I said.
“Can I have some money for cookies?”
I gave him some change and he headed for the canteen. The woman next to me said, “Is that your son?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and smiled, and said, “He looks like he’s enjoying himself.”
I noticed lots of people looking at me as Yeats regained the railing and resumed his dance. Yes, I am his mother.
MY FRIEND HEATHER, HER husband, Gord, and their teenaged daughter, Elizabeth, picked us up at the ferry. We drove down the island to a marina where they docked their boat. Their cabin was on De Courcy Island, a gulf island just south of Gabriola. De Courcy is a long, narrow island, about 300 acres of mostly forested land. There are about forty homes on the island, the majority of them seasonal, like our cottage in Muskoka. The boat trip to De Courcy wasn’t long, about ten minutes, then another five or ten minutes in my friends’ pickup truck to the cabin.
And it really was a cabin, perched on a small hillside above a rocky beach. It had a cozy living room/kitchen area and two small bedrooms. The fridge, stove, and on-demand hot water heater were all propane, and the lights and water pump worked off the solar panel installed on the lawn outside. They had a generator for backup, but we didn’t need to run it while we were there.
There was a window seat that looked out over the water and a couch with armchairs around a pot-bellied stove. A long, wooden dining table sat alongside a row of floor-to-ceiling windows, and everything was within arm’s reach of everything else.
We loved it. It was so vastly different from the cottage in Muskoka that I was instantly jealous.
Yeats said, “Why can’t our cottage be like this?”
Heather laughed and said, “But I love your place in Muskoka! Wanna trade?”
Yeats thought about that but didn’t say anything. Then he went outside to play badminton with Elizabeth, followed by their dog, Jake. Jake was a Maltipoo, the cutest and happiest dog I’d ever met.
Heather made a couple of gin and tonics, which we took
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