drifting on summer time

It often feels that time is slipping away, but maybe that's because I'm not always clear on where I'm going. I do have a general plan, but currents get me. I sometimes wash up in unexpected places, but with a little thought and introspection, perhaps a slight change of perspective, I work these digressions into my own plot. We all get there, in time. Where there is, well that's up to us.

Canada geese, also headed somewhere.

Time got away from me this summer. I try to fit myself into a timetable (I do have a bit of an addiction to spreadsheets) with very little success. Maybe I should learn something from this. Flux is not necessarily bad.

My writing slipped away this summer, causing me angst, until I thought that maybe writing, like any occupation, needs an occasional holiday. It gave way to visitors and holidays and bits of travel. In actual distance traveled, not much, but then when you move the scale down to the ground (or sea) and move slowly enough to see the ocean drift by, or the road spin under your tires, it gives you a different perspective. (And it doesn't rattle your brain quite the way levitating through the air does.)

swallowed into the woods

Although the summer seems to have flown by, when I think about it, time was leisurely. Part of the time anyway. The week I spent on Galiano Island at the end of July slipped by, but in that week, I remembered I could live without electronic communications. No phone, no computer, no cell reception. (No running water either, though the rain barrels pumped out enough to keep the dishes clean.) No sounds except the wind in the trees, ravens laughing in the distance.

Coon Bay, Galiano Island

August though. August flew by. And now it's half-way through September. I worry this is a phenomenon of getting older; you blink, and the season has changed.

On the weekend my love and I took his kayak out for an all too infrequent paddle. We launched into False Creek, and paddled along the shoreline, marvelling at the contrasts, glittering glass towers, a seal poking his nose out of the water.

We had such a peaceful time there within the hum of the city, that we took it out again on Sunday. This time out to Deep Cove, and paddled up Indian Arm. It was an interesting contrast to our city paddle. Instead of tall buildings, steep hillsides, sometimes cliff drop down into the water. Scattered in the trees, clinging to what there is of shoreline, lush and exhorbitant houses sit basking in the semi solitude. Saw several seals. We paddled for almost three hours, away then back again.

summer colour, alas

The whole time, there was the roar of motorboats, echoing off the sides of this little fjord. It was a constant and relentless sound, never stopping for the whole three hours. Sunday on the water. Choppy water too, all those people stirring it up with their outboards. It made me yearn for the peace of False Creek, which in truth was quieter, even in the middle of the city. Galiano, a distant dream.

Today there are clouds everywhere, back to the usual colour of Vancouver's sky. There's a definite feel of fall out there. So I'm going hiking. Quick, before the snow falls on Grouse mountain, the one I can't see anymore, hidden in the fog. It'll be peaceful on the trail.