Just a thought… It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. [Henry David Thoreau]
As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.
Well, we could call this “the best-laid plans” – hoping to shoot something outside during our brief stay in Sooke, BC for you to watch today. I mean, I could have, but all you would have heard was the thunder of winds on my microphone and seen rain all over the lens. And so the video you see behind me in today’s video journal was shot through a window. There are some stills and I’ll use them for quotes and memes in the future. I can always use a good backdrop.
But, oh, did we have rain! Torrential storms and even thunder and lightning one night. It pelted so hard that the drops falling on the skylights sounded like popcorn kernels hitting the plastic dome in a popper. And the winds screeched through doors and windows, and whooshed outside, and all the while, drove sheets of water into the windows as though we were driving through a car wash.
I had taken ear plugs with me (for no really good reason except they’re on my packing list) and, boy, was I glad I had them on Monday night! It was airport-level loud with screeching winds that moved outdoor furniture, toppled a shore-view bench and sent the lid of a hot tub into a garden, stopped, thankfully, by some small shrubs or we might be asking surfers to stop riding on it.
All that said, it was heavenly. Fresh baking and a meal brought by our overnight visitors (our best friends here) then word games and a fantastic viewing of Questlove’s Oscar-winning documentary Summer of Soul about a music festival in Harlem which took place at the same time as Woodstock. Just terrific viewing and I defy you not to dance!
Alone for the next two days, Rob and I did a bit of work, a lot of corresponding and reading and just relaxing. Just the two of us, as the old Grover Washington Jr. song went. Birthday calls, cards and texts, and lots of lovely connection.
We didn’t see whales (my tracking app showed them much closer to our home in North Saanich than down in Sooke) but there were a few eagles, sea lions in the surf and, yes, as I mentioned, surfers. All in all, it added up to a gentle few days and I’ll tell you that if you’re planning a visit to Vancouver Island, as some folks on Facebook told me they are, you have got to get booking now, as places all over our glorious island home are completely reserved. Seems so many people discovered this area during the first few waves of Covid and staycations that they’re coming back again and again.
As I will continue to do. My happy place, not so far away, where we are reminded of being so very small, at the whims of the weather – and bigger picture, the climate – and yet blessedly, perhaps obscenely content in these tumultuous times. I think I’m going into birthday cake withdrawal – we had it Friday for our son-in-law, again on the weekend, and last night with Phil, Brooke and the grandkids. How lucky we are!
May your weekend be replenishing and I’ll be back here with you on Monday.