“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
Fifteen years ago we were waiting for a BC Ferry to check out a possible beach house in Sechelt.
We’d been retired for a year and a half and had just come back from a few months of traveling from London to Cairo on an overland truck. We’d ended that trip by backpacking around Israel and then having a ten-day rest/holiday in Greece.
It was on the beach in Crete that we had an epiphany. Now that we were no longer tied to a location because of our jobs, why couldn’t we live on a beach back home in British Columbia?
Barely over a week after our return from that Greek beach, we were the owners of a seaside cottage on Stalashen Drive in Sechelt.
And now, it is just over fifteen years later (fifteen years? – how is that possible?) and I am writing this as we wait for a ferry to make that same crossing over to the Sunshine Coast.
Our seaside home has sold. This time we’re ferrying across the Georgia Strait so we can go over and deal with fifteen years of living out that dream and the subsequent bizarrely-huge accumulation of stuff.
We used that home well. Our beloved Dalmatian, Miss Mary-Margaret, is buried in the back garden. Two young boys, our son and nephew, grew up into fine young men because of that Stalashen Drive home. For a little while we had three chickens Courage, Carma and Confidence. We grew some fine tomatoes and whacks of salad greens. I learned to hang out in a hammock and played at collage in the glass studio that Kevin built for me.
We have cherished friends and connections on the Sunshine Coast and I can honestly say that our Stalashen Drive neighbourhood was like living in a perfected version of Hooville.
But it’s time for a new chapter. We’ve bought a small one-bedroom apartment in The Village on False Creek in Vancouver.
With this latest move we will have to lose sight of our beloved Stalashen shore. I’m not sure what will happen as a result or where we’ll wash up next but for both of us, it just felt like it was time.
I do know this…I will miss our seaside home, I will miss our neighbourhood, and oh my, my, I will surely miss the sea.
I’m a little forlorn but am mostly happy and excited for you. Can’t wait to come visit. But I am wondering…what happened to those three chickens?
Hey Amy, I would have loved for you to see this spot in Sechelt…as for Courage, Confidence and Carma? They were given to some friends and though they kept laying eggs for some time, they died a while later, all within three months of each other. A rather final end of an era…
Such an evocative quote. I can’t imagine leaving the ocean, but won’t say ‘never’. And at least you will be at the edge of a body of water that connects out to the Salish Sea. And have a decade and a half of memories to pull up like postcards in your mind, taking you back to everything you loved about living here.
Just as it has been whenever a friend has moved ‘away’, it will take time for me to pass by the turn off for Stalashen and not think ‘Colleen lives there’ – how it flashes into my mind like a burst of sunshine and has become inexplicably just a part of that fine 100ft stretch of highway that includes Cougie’s favorite park and the beach where Feastro the food truck gave us a place to congregate.
And I know, because it has happened before, that when a friend I truly trust and cherish leaves, a part of me goes with them, and the zing & zap of bittersweet and sparkling nostalgia is woven into the memory of them in this place, this little grassy, oceany bit where I live and love. My Newfie friend Sue moved away 15 years ago, and missing her in my everyday life still hits me at times, completely unexpected no matter how often it happens.
Your new ‘village’ looks fun, personable and community-oriented, the perfect place for you and Kevin. I’m sure over time I’ll get used to seeing only posts from ‘over there’ and not being able to sit looking out over that amazing beach with you, but it feels like it’s a long way off. I hope your new city home recognizes the amazing, snorkage-laden gift landing in their midst.
Darling Laurie, our new place in The Village is indeed at the end of the Salish Sea. Although when I look out at the high tide that rushes the shore here in Sechelt and compare it to the corralled version of False Creek, it’s hard to believe they are the same body of water.
Our new village does look community-minded and I hope it works out that way. It’s hard to imagine a place more connected than what we’ve found on the Sunshine Coast.
It’s true that we won’t be sitting on my Stalashen Drive deck any more, but I’m hoping you can join me on a bench overlooking False Creek. I promise some serious snorakge if you do…
I was thinking of you the other day after (I believe) I might have coined a phrase (probably not, but it was new to me) I was regarding all the stuff in a closet – shoes from my wedding I’ve worn twice, box of old tchotke, bits of art and pottery and the line-edited typeset manuscript of my first novel. God knows what’s in the attic, but all of it – all of this STUFF – has just enough meaning or history it’s not so easy to let go, even though I want to – almost desperately. All of these things now have a name for me – impedimento.
I think I need to go back into that story, Exaltation, and give this word a spot somewhere…
When I left the beautiful house I raised my son in (which I renovated just as painstakingly as the woman in the story), it was actually pretty easy to give it all up and shut the door. The difficult bit was the garden. Maybe for you it will be the beach – but then no one really ever owns a beach, do they?
Impedimento. I love it. It is so, so true. We’re in Sechelt now and firing stuff into the carport for the big neighbourhood garage sale on Saturday. Stuff like lights, wheelbarrows, heaters and tools are easy to let go.
But what about my bins of journals? The pottery from a trip to the Copper Canyon in Mexico? The paintings and photos from all the trips? Oh my. Oh my. Impedimento.
And you’re right. No one owns the beach. I am finally resolved with being a visitor here and I’m quite happy to leave my garden too, just not sure about how I’m going to be with figuring out the final bits of what to keep and what to leave…It all shall be revealed (I hope).
Yay, I’m so glad you finally found a new place, but I’m also sad you’re losing your spot on the sea. I have no doubt, however, that you will find happiness and adventure no matter where you live.
Thanks Sharry…I’m so sad to say goodbye to the sea too, but I’m excited too, by what might come next. I think you’re right, there WLL be new adventures 🙂
I hope you love your new home as much as we love ours 🙂
Thanks for the good wishes Becca.
I know one thing for sure, it’ll be a test for my creativity in how to live small:)