Evanescent Memories

There is nothing like hazy sun rise or pinkish moon sets on Cowichan Bay. Nothing like to feel on the right place on Earth and explore for three days. I thus drive towards the Strait of Juan de Fucca, the road is magically hazy on Saanich inlet, on the other side hills. The American continent gets such a peculiar morning light.
And suddenly, I can see the strait. Suddenly, I can see my previous America standing on the horizon. It is not a mirror recollection, it is reachable, almost touchable on the other side of the water. My heart shines in opposite directions. Arrived to my first destination – Mystic Beach -, I let the sparkling ocean flooding me with lights, I let the swell against the highest land giving me vertigo, I let the horizon telling me about the past, about love, about healing, about today.

When does a black word on a white map become something else than a black word on a white map? When does it lose its beauty or get enhanced by a first look? Now? Yesterday? Tomorrow? Thus, Mystic Beach was way more mystic and mysterious by its name than by my first view, even if its gives me a random look of Olympic mountains in the far. Mystic Beach is was less mystic than Ruby Beach by a non sunset in August.
I am looking at my past in the eyes, because I gaze, disbelief, at the place I was standing on two years ago. The place from where I couldn’t see myself today, or at least the land I am standing on. My past is clear, a bit hazy in some places. My future was foggy, smoky then. Certainly because it is impossible to know your future… Certainly becaue Vancouver Island was meant to be my own and only treasure.

When a black word on a white map isn’t a black word on a white map anymore, but a memory, a feeling, a song, a sound, a smell, a person? I am walking in between Vancouver Island trees, convinced they are reflecting my loving peninsula. Except those ones are creating new memories, lonely. They are enhanced. I wrote a beautiful curse one day: Washington State landscapes were our love’s colors. Not his. Not mine. Our love’s. By extension, anything like it will as well. So does their taste. And sensations. Vancouver Island is bitter sweet of our lost love.
Therefore, is my Victorian love at first sight real or invented? Is it now or yesterday? It is a whole. I like it here because it feels like there, but there I couldn’t live. There, it would only be a bad circle. Here is another beginning of peace with my past since I acknowledge it as a part of who I am. I feel like transcended towards a deep knowledge, towards my instincts. All of a sudden, nothing else exists. Only my own truth counts.

I eventually leave my hide and seek secret woody place, hanging on the invisible ocean; I rewind by foot along the swell, I fast forward by car along huge and blind trees. Except when they got uprooted and give me glance on the shining strait ocean. I stop by Sombrino Beach in this timeless day. Today was so sunny until now, yet the beach stands grey and humid. Closer to Ruby’s mystery, even without a name, some spread surfers dancing with the swell. I then keep going towards Port Renfrew where Botanical Beach welcome my wandering. Trees raise from the earth so curiously, they intertwines so mysteriously. I would like to meet fairies who live there. I am now truly in front of Cape Flattery; the scenery, hilly and watery, looks like my memory. Less various though. The autumn atmosphere has similar colors. Walking in this familiar and peculiar scenery makes both my heart and memories at peace. I feel so good here.
Then, the grey night rise and I go back home, passing by the shy Cowichan Lake, the further morning horizon shining its night time too early.

The next day is a new adventure. Except the sun went to other skies and no hazy horizon awakes me. I thus left under the same light than my arrival in Nanaimo. The ride is slow and rainy at first until I stop in Combs, where the goat on the roof in absent and where my expenses need to be simmered down. After this stop, the road finally gets some dreamy colors as I am entering McMillan Provincial Park. I cross Cameron Lake, vanishing in foggy trees, moved to my tears, reminder of my two years ago Lake Quinault. I then stop, like I promised to Google map, at Cathedral Grove Rain Forest, so much alike the Olympic. Huge and green trees escape me despite noise and the short trail in the rain. Not less magic though.
After this mesmerizing green stop, I endlessly drive to Tofino. My eyes are tired. My being is lost in the past. Everything is yet so nice to look at. So similar to my loving soul, to my traveling heart. Pont Alberny Valley. Sproat Lake. Kennedy Lake. The tortuous and peculiar river along Pacific Rim Highway. Fog’s fights. Scenery completely transformed by the veil moving from water to the sky. My special feeling. This unreel atmosphere. A magic fate. My fate.
Tofino, surrounded by hazy spread islands, finish line of the day, gets such a simple beauty. I don’t feel like I belong though. Too trendy. Too fancy. It is for somebody else than me. I fall asleep so early, after I have read a few pages of Margaret Atwood, for a perfect and long night, bothered by the youth I am not part of anymore.

The simple and melancolic morning on the foggy shores, with the swell song, gets everything my soul has dreamt of. I though a few days ago that I had started to get bored with mountains and it is not what I truly meant! Mountains are majestuously exhausting, so amazingly beautiful. Whereas here, in this place where hills and oceans make love, I now breathe with soft, beautiful and unreal landscapes. Calmly. Peaceful. Complete. This is the reason why Ireland loves me. This is why my heart fell in love with the Olympic, because it perfectly fits who I am.

Spread islands around Tofino look like my idea of New-Zealand in the morning hazy light. Trees along the Pacific are more and more unbelievable. My trip offers me flying visions on the cloudy bay. Those flying views though, those fleeting impressions, are so precious and unique; like this unreal look at Long Beach Rock whose hazy light dance with endless swell. Like Combers Beach whose same light is even more unreal in the surrounding green. Like the other rain forest where broken trees become bridges. I really feel like I am in another world.

And following the Pacific Rim line, I reach Uclueket circled by the wild Pacific haze on one side and foggy hills similar to New-Zealand on the other side. Like Tofino. Lights throughout trees on the ocean and its rocky tiny islands are absolutely incredible towards Inspiration Point. So well named, but not enough to write a poem somehow.
Sun is now the only master and offers me a last fleeting view of the place I was standing relieved from its hazy colors now. My way back shades, not in the rain anymore, astonishingly blend fall and mouse shining green. Hills play a bit with the haze.

I am still full of my weird feelings since I got a glimpse of the Olympic. This landscape brings me back to another version of my life…. Indecisive, I don’t know if I am longing for it or not. This peculiar energy. Endless questioning love. Peninsula in the far. Indecisive, I know I am not longing for it anymore, I am getting free. Something is awaiting for me, hidden. A revelation? A reality? I don’t know, something new is coming. Invisible.
But I already get the East, I can see Canada’s mountains in the far. So blue, so absurd I think they are clouds for a short moment. Still mesmerized by the unreel world I have been part of for three days.