Multiple shades of rain

Vancouver is famous for its rain. It can rain here for weeks on end, but it does not usually bother me. However, several years ago, I found myself coming close to be thoroughly disgusted with the rain.
I walked home from work one evening in the pouring rain, mumbling under my breath the whole way that this weather was only fitted for ducks. The building I lived in was large and square, and it surrounded a brick courtyard. I came around the corner into the courtyard and there, to my amazement, was a beautiful Peking duck in a huge puddle in the middle of the courtyard, quacking and splashing with obvious delight I had to smile, glad that such joy could be found in the gray wetness of such a day.
I have often though that we do not have nearly enough words for rain, especially as this was once a rainforest. There is booming rain, whispery rain, rain that pulls you to sleep and rain on the leaves that sings you awake ; There is soft rain, hard rain sideways rain, rain that makes you instantly wet, and rain that leaves soft kisses on your cheek, like the wings of a butterfly.
Rain brings us all the shades of gray, but it also brings us the wonderful greenery that surrounds us and blesses us.
Regan D’Andrade

Here I am then on waters – Pacific, strait or others – gray whatever they are. Mount Baker is still here this morning in the blue window, but grey today because the sky got cloudy during the night. I longe continents, small or big – America on one side and the island on the other -, I am heading towards to a city even bigger, in order to get full of sky scrappers and culture, taking my shot of urban adrenaline. Vancouver is my last step. It is soon the end of my Canada but I won’t anticipate…
My purple love at first sight is now hazy but doesn’t lose any of its majesty. I wander all day long, not without a chocolate croissant in my stomach for a good start; from Grandville Island to Kitsilano along the Spanish side, my invisible loved island on the West, some heights emerging from northern clouds. At noon, I have almost forgotten I took the ferry this morning. I have forgotten I woke up on an island. So rich my morning was.

Like any exploring country girl, I am so happy to lose myself in a big metropolis for a few days, te reconnect with the city peculiar way of life. I head to Cambie Village and Main Street, seeking for my Christmas gifts. I put my lipstick on and my chapka, I feel invincible. I am thinking one thousand and one ideas as my steps go by. Forgotten the next minutes, they are perfectly light and now though.

Like always, the night is dark pretty early but the day is far from being over. Metropolitan days are so long, I don’t have to stop because of the night sky… It shines with city lights. It is getting even more beautiful. Vancouver welcomes a hockey game tonight and I cant’ decide. I would like to give a shot to a sport bar but my heart is hungry… poor but hungry! I therefore buy a tickets and throw myself to the Canucks, moved by the Canadian anthem, maple flap in the immobile wind, hands on Canada’s heart! What a show! What a virtuosity! Actions are so quick and so agile. I expected more fights though and I am a bit disappointed. Apparently, the sport has softened for the last few years.

I go back in the rain. What have I thought about all day long? Mountains, the city’s breath, Christmas, this huge place, me?… Without a real answer, I settle along Fraser River, always awakened by the cold in the dark.

For my second day in Vancouver, morning takes its time, caught up by French schedule, unmotivated because the ridiculous amount of rain weeping from clouds now stuck in the surrounding mountains. Once I have accepted my rainy path though, I happily play hide and seek with my car. It is Monday now and parking downtown is such hell if you don’t want to pay a fortune or get towed. I rush toward historical districts: Chinatown and Gastown. China why not but Victoria was more mysterious, Victoria was more playful. Yet, Victoria didn’t have an owls’ tree where they were sleeping in day light. Gastown, named after the Scottish Gassy Jack, one of the first settlers of the district; I fall in love with its red old factories type buildings from another century. I don’t travel time, I don’t invent stories; yet, their ghosts walked next to my steps. Ghosts of Europeans who started this western place in between those walls.

Then, hurried by my car so my clock won’t be late, I head to Stanley Park that I cant’ (and don’t want to) walk. Another day maybe. When God will stop to cry and I will be able to see the mountains across the bay. The scenery full of gigantic trees is still so refreshing… So green so close, last memories of ancient rain forests. Oh, and this boat, perfect memory of an Irish one last January*. And the Lake Lagoon’s hazy summer warmth crawling towards autumnal weeping trees. I run again, rushed to visit the art museum before it closes. Disappointed. Once more. A bit. Except for the Native exhibition on the top floor.

My day ends like it began, in the rain. I walk through West End, bright and shinny. And I seek shelter at a couchsurfer’s, good surprise of my day, where the cold won’t wake me up. I am so perfectly happy, of my itinerary, to get used to the city so easily, to dance in Vancouver’s rain like Regan D’Andrade’s Peking duck.

I leave in a dry morning, lingering in the majestic city, heading towards North Vancouver to say good-bye. I cross Lions Gate Bridge caught on my camera yesterday, random in my chosen destinations. Capilano Canyon, more touristy than adventurous, is not opened yet when I drive by; Cleveland Dam is hazy and quick; Grouse Mountain is invisible and hard, even if I glimpse at Vancouver on the far. I then settle with my first idea: Lynn Canyon whose mossy trees are once again so unreally green and unbelievably shaped. The hanging bridge is unreachable though and the vertiginous canyon as well. It is nonetheless so nice to wander in the red cedars and their green branches.

It is now time to actually leave though, after this lingering goodbye. I cross Port Mann Bridge, happily scared; the bridge lost a bit of its beauty without the pink sky and the purple city. It sadly says “see you soon”, too melancholic to reveal itself.